For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
November 14, 2005

President Calls for Successful Outcome to Doha Round

Prime Minister Blair has challenged World Trade Organization members to ensure that the Doha Development Agenda fulfills its market-opening potential that would help lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. I welcome and endorse his call for action to ensure a successful outcome to the Doha Round.

To achieve this ambitious agenda, all WTO members will have to do their part. To give impetus to Doha, I called for the reduction and then elimination of trade-distorting agricultural subsidies and tariffs. If the EU offers similar real cuts to agricultural subsidies and tariffs, others will also have to come forward with significant proposals to cut tariffs and reduce barriers on manufactured goods and services. The Doha Development Agenda is vital to promoting development. Through the pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals and the G-8 agreement to cancel 100 percent of the debt of the world's most heavily indebted nations, we have made good progress on aid and debt relief. However, trade is the engine for a sustained expansion of prosperity around the world. Through a successful Doha Round, we can realize that opportunity.

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