This report discusses agricultural issues in World Trade Organization (WTO) multilateral trade negotiations—the so-called Doha Round or the Doha Development Agenda (DDA). The initial focus is on the implications of the suspension of Doha negotiations in July 2006 for future trade negotiations and the next U.S. farm bill. The report discusses current efforts to revive the suspended negotiations, the reasons for the July 2006 suspension of negotiations, and the agreements reached at the December 13-18, 2005, Hong Kong Ministerial meeting. Briefly discussed also are the role of the U.S. Congress; the major negotiating issues and proposals at play in the Doha Round; the historical development of agricultural trade negotiations since the Uruguay Round; and the potential economic benefits estimated to ensue from a successful trade agreement according to several recent studies. Numerous meetings between leading member countries of the World Trade Organization have been taking place since the July 2006 suspension of formal negotiations. The pace of efforts to revive the Doha Development Agenda multilateral trade negotiations has quickened as the expiration of fast-track or trade promotion authority for congressional consideration of trade agreements approaches. TPA (in Title XXI of P.L. 107-210 ) expires June 30, 2007, unless the 110 th Congress votes to extend it, and there is little likelihood that a comprehensive trade agreement could survive congressional debate without the expedited procedures that TPA provides. Some Members of Congress have discussed extending TPA either in its present form or with amendments that would give greater weight to labor and environmental considerations. TPA authority would be needed for a speedy consideration of a multilateral trade agreement but also for various other free trade agreements that are currently being negotiated. Just as disagreement over agricultural issues was the principal cause of the July 2006 suspension of negotiations, agriculture has been at the center of efforts to restart the negotiations. After resuming on November 16, 2006, negotiations have focused on various formulas for reducing trade-distorting subsidies and tariffs. There have also been discussions at the political level involving presidents and prime ministers as well as trade ministers. The political discussions have involved expressions of support for successfully concluding the round as well as expressions of willingness to reach satisfactory compromises on the issues dividing WTO members. In policy discussions, the United States is being asked by the European Union (EU) and the developing countries, led by Brazil and India, to make a more generous offer for reducing trade-distorting domestic support. The United States is insisting that the EU and the developing countries agree to make more substantial reductions in tariffs and to limit the number of import-sensitive and special products that would be exempt from cuts. Import-sensitive products are of most concern to developed countries like the European Union, while developing countries are concerned with special products—those exempt from both tariff cuts and subsidy reductions because of development, food security, or livelihood considerations. Brazil has emphasized reductions in trade-distorting domestic subsidies, especially by the United States (some of which it successfully challenged in the WTO U.S.-Brazil cotton dispute discussed below), while India has insisted on a large number of special products that would not be exposed to wider market opening. Discussions have been particularly intense between the United States and the EU. The U.S. President has met with the president of the European Commission, and there have been several meetings between the U.S. Trade Representative and the EU Commissioner for Trade. While U.S. and EU negotiators have not changed their official positions since suspension of negotiations as described below, there have been suggestions that each could show more flexibility: the United States might offer a greater percentage reduction in domestic support if the EU offered to reduce tariffs further and limit the number of import-sensitive products. However, new offers on domestic support and market access by the United States and the EU are constrained by domestic political considerations. Neither U.S. nor EU farmers have professed a willingness to support further concessions on subsidies or tariffs. No clear idea has yet emerged as to how much tariff reduction would be needed to match domestic subsidy cuts or vice versa to satisfy U.S. or EU farm interests. While U.S. and EU agreement is a necessary condition for successfully concluding a Doha Round agreement, it is not sufficient. The 1994 Uruguay Round was concluded due in large part to a U.S.-EU agreement on the major issues. In Doha Round negotiations, however, developing countries are playing a major, even decisive, role. Brazil's position on both domestic support and tariff reduction (discussed below) is considered by many as a middle ground, although the United States has said that Brazil's proposal for tariff reduction (an average cut of 54%) falls short of the kind of ambition in tariff reduction it has called for (an average cut of 66%). India, as a member of the G-20 group of developing countries, has endorsed the G-20 proposal, but has yet to demonstrate any flexibility in its demand for a large number of special product exemptions from new trade rules. The next step in restarting the Doha Round negotiations will be an informal WTO Minister's meeting "on the margin" of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January 2007. The aim of the meeting will be to take stock of trade ministers' views and, if possible, make decisions about resuming negotiations at the ministerial level. Around 30 trade ministers representing the full range of WTO member country interests are expected to attend the meeting. A successful Davos meeting could result in a new schedule for resuming negotiations in the Doha Round, not a broad outline for resolving the main negotiating issues. On July 24, 2006, the Director General of the WTO, Pascal Lamy, announced an indefinite suspension of further negotiations in the Doha Round. The principal cause of the suspension was that a core group of WTO member countries—the United States, the European Union (EU), Brazil, India, Australia, and Japan—known as the G-6 had reached an impasse over specific methods to achieve the broad aims of the round for agricultural trade: substantial reductions in trade-distorting domestic subsidies, elimination of export subsidies, and substantially increased market access for agricultural products. The United States maintained that it had made an ambitious offer of reductions in trade supporting domestic support (discussed below) that had not been matched by agricultural tariff reductions by the EU or by market opening for agricultural and industrial products by Brazil and India, both large developing countries. The EU and Brazil argued that the U.S. offer on domestic support did not go far enough in reducing trade-distorting support and would in fact leave the United States in a position to spend more on such subsidies than under the current WTO (Uruguay Round) Agreement on Agriculture. Doha Round negotiators were operating under a deadline effectively imposed by the expiration of U.S. trade promotion authority (TPA), which permits the President to negotiate trade deals and present them to Congress for an up or down vote without amendment. To meet congressional notification requirements under TPA legislation, an agreement would have to have been completed by the end of 2006. TPA expires on June 30, 2007. Some trade policy analysts think that reauthorization of TPA faces uncertain prospects in the 110 th Congress. Some, however, suggest that Congress might extend TPA temporarily if a Doha Round agreement seemed imminent, as was the case in 1994 for the Uruguay Round Multilateral Trade Agreements. A number of agreements had already been reached in the Doha Round agricultural negotiations, but they are contingent on a comprehensive agreement in the single undertaking ("nothing is agreed until everything is agreed") that is the round and will now be put on hold. Those include an agreement by the EU to eliminate its agricultural export subsidies by the end of 2013 and an agreement by developed countries to extend duty and quota free access to 97% of the exports of the least developed countries. The agreement at Hong Kong to provide early and ambitious subsidy reduction for cotton also is dependent on there being a comprehensive Doha round agreement. The WTO will continue to provide aid for trade funds to help developing countries participate more fully in the world trade system. Aid for trade discussions were conducted outside the framework of Doha Round negotiations. As a result of the suspension of the negotiations, a major source of pressure for U.S. farm policy change has dissipated. The current farm bill ( P.L. 107-171 ) expires in 2007, and many were looking to a Doha Round agreement on curbing trade-distorting domestic support to require changes in U.S. farm subsidies to make them more compatible with world trade rules. The option of continuing current farm subsidy programs appears strengthened by the indefinite suspension and uncertain prospects of the Doha talks. Legislation ( H.R. 4332 , H.R. 4775 , and S. 2696 ) already had been introduced in the 109 th Congress to extend the 2002 farm bill by one year. The American Farm Bureau, at its 2007 annual meeting just concluded, endorsed "the concepts of the 2002 farm bill" for its farm safety net features (i.e., the set of direct payments and price-related commodity support). The United States must still meet obligations under existing WTO agricultural agreements, which limit its trade-distorting spending to $19.1 billion annually. Some trade analysts think that there could be an increase in litigation by WTO member countries that allege they are harmed by U.S. farm subsidies. The expiration of the "peace clause" (Article 13 of the 1994 Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture) means that WTO member countries are no longer bound by an agreement to refrain from challenging each other's agricultural subsidy programs so long as commitments under the agreement are being met. Brazil's successful challenges of U.S. cotton subsidies and EU sugar subsidies in WTO dispute settlement are cited as illustrations of the possible kinds of legal actions that WTO members might take.