Sectoral negotiations are the major stumbling block to a successful conclusion of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) non-agricultural market access (NAMA) negotiations. Tensions have been created because developed countries such as the United States insist that emerging economies such as China, India, and Brazil participate in sectoral negotiations and accept the final results of such negotiations. This demand has been persistently rejected by the emerging economies. This article analyses the impasse in the sectoral negotiations from the perspectives of the negotiating mandate and reciprocity in the results of the tariff reduction. It chooses the United States and China as samples for comparison and finds that insistence on the compulsory participation of developing members in sectoral negotiations is inconsistent with the mandate of ‘non-mandatory’ participation; and that the three US-led sectoral initiatives, that is, chemicals, industrial machinery, and electronics and electrical products, have led to deep additional tariff reductions, which are asymmetrical between developed and developing members. Due to a lack of reciprocity, these three sectoral initiatives have become part of the problem, instead of the solution, to the DDA NAMA negotiations. To solve the impasse, this article proposes some adjustment to the current sectoral initiatives to restore reciprocity and encourage the voluntary participation of developing members.
Journal of World Trade