While criticising India for its lower ambition levels in the present round of multilateral trade negotiations, the US said World Trade Organisation members seeking higher cuts in agricultural subsidies should accept its demands for greater market access through greater tariff cuts.
Speaking to reporters through a video-conference, Assistant US Trade Representative Dorothy Dwoskin said a comprehensive package on the three issues, namely market access, domestic support and export subsidies, was required.
"India is like the European Union which is not interested in opening markets," she said.
"If you want cuts in subsidies then there is a need for higher ambitions on market access," Dwoskin said. She also noted that the US was against a two-tiered system at the WTO with separate rules for the developed and developing countries.
Developing countries such as India have demanded special preferences factoring in the large population dependent on agriculture.
Dwoskin, who is in charge of multilateral and WTO-related matters, said the US-EU joint framework, submitted in Geneva last month, aimed at taking things forward from the stalemate that had been created since the negotiations commenced.
The WTO had failed to set the modalities for negotiations due to the rift among its members.
Dwoskin, however, added that the two largest traders in the world, the US and the EU, did not want to impose anything on developing countries and had factored in their concerns through steps such as special safeguard measures to check import surges.
Dwoskin said the US was very aggressive on agricultural reforms and the EU's common agriculture programme should help in reducing domestic support.
She, however, reiterated that countries should try to eliminate export subsidies to make agricultural trade more competitive.
"(But) it will be a struggle to convince the European Union on export subsidies," Dwoskin added.
Responding to a question on classification of agricultural subsidies into various boxes and the chances of countries transferring subsidies from one box to another, Dwoskin said the US was against any such approach and would push for reducing farm support.
