Agriculture is likely to be the area that attracts the most virulent discussions.
The US, Argentina, Australia and Brazil are seeking an end to all forms of agricultural protectionism while the European Union, Japan and others are fighting to safeguard their own, heavily protected agricultural sectors. The EU, together with Japan and Korea, claim that farming merits special treatment because it is a multifunctional activity with social and environmental implications. It should not, they see, be reduced to the simple mathematics of trade. Japan, though, is taking a particularly hard line, and has repeatedly made public its refusal to see farm products treated in the same way as other goods. The fight over agricultural production is likely to reach fever pitch when the talks get round to the question of genetic modification, with the EU and Japan intent on regulating trade and the US, the main producer, equally insistent on no WTO regulation.