Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman says a "key objective" of the United States in the World Trade Organization upcoming negotiations will be to "rein in the trade distorting practices" of state trading enterprises.  That includes the Canadian Wheat Board.  "Change is hard.  We know that.  But it is essential," he says.

In an address to the Canadian Agricultural Trade Conference in Ottawa, he also said the United States would seek "more discipline and greater transparency in the monopoly activities that these government-run entities engage in."

That is a "serious bone of contention" between the United States and Canada, he added, "particularly with respect to the Canadian Wheat Board.  But it is my feeling that we need to look at all activities that WTO members feel distort markets or otherwise circumvent the fairness that the WTO process is trying to achieve."

"Disciplining tariff-rate quotas" is another area "where we can make further advances in increasing access to markets," Glickman said.  TRQs "can have the effect of curtailing exports and impeding trade."  In the Uruguay Round, he added, TRQs were used to "ease market restrictions for products not previously subject to tariffs."

Biotechnology products are an "emerging issue" that needs to be "forcefully" addressed, said Glickman.  "We want to ensure that the rules governing trade will remain legitimate health protection, but we must do so without unnecessarily and arbitrarily blocking free and fair trade."

Glickman also announced that the United States and Canada will form a consultative committee on agriculture "to improve cooperation on agricultural trade issues."  That should help "identify and begin to address bilateral problems in their earliest stages," he said.

The committee will meet at least once a year and be co-chaired on the U.S. side by senior officials from USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service and the U.S. trade representative's office.