Talks on Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) in the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha Round refer to the reduction of tariff and non-tariff barriers (NTBs) on industrial and primary products, basically all trade in goods which are not foodstuffs. While the agriculture negotiations have received greater scrutiny in the Doha round, trade of industrial and primary products, the subject of the NAMA negotiations, continues to make up the bulk of world trade. Nearly $12.5 trillion in manufactures and primary products was traded worldwide in 2009, accounting for 78.9% of world trade activity. In the United States, industrial and primary products accounted for 68% of exports and 81% of imports in 2009. Hence, the outcome of these negotiations could have a substantial impact on the U.S. trade picture and some effect on the overall U.S. economy. Previous to the Doha Round, industrial tariff negotiations were the mainstay of General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations. These rounds led to the reduction of developed country average tariffs from 40% at the end of World War II to 6% today. However, average tariff figures mask higher tariffs for many labor intensive or value-added goods that are especially of interest to the developing world. Moreover, average tariff levels in developing countries remain high, with average industrial tariffs averaging about 13%. For the United States and other developed countries, prospective gains from the NAMA talks in this round would be from the reduction of high tariffs in the developing world, particularly from such countries as Brazil, India, and China. Developing countries were exempted from making concessions in market access in previous rounds, thus sustaining the heavy tariff structure in those countries. Developing countries are leery of opening up their markets to competition, often making the argument that protectionist policies were employed in the development of many successful economies, from the European and North American economies in the 19 th century to the rise of the East Asian tigers in the 20 th century. However, as negotiating positions have made clear, developed countries are demanding more access for their industrial products as a price for opening up their agricultural sectors, where many developing countries have a comparative advantage. Conversely, developing countries have held industrial tariff negotiations hostage to movement on agriculture. This dynamic has been one of the factors contributing to the current deadlock in the negotiations. Legislation to implement any agreement that results from the Doha Round negotiations would need to be passed by Congress. If considering such legislation, Congress may examine the extent to which a potential agreement opens foreign markets to U.S. exporters through the reduction of both tariff and non-tariff barriers. Congress may also examine a potential agreement by its impact on the health of the U.S. manufacturing sector, and its impact on manufacturing employment. The current round of trade negotiations were launched at the 4 th Ministerial of the WTO, held at Doha, Qatar, in November 2001. The course of the negotiations were set in the Doha Ministerial Declaration, which provided the negotiating objectives of the round in general terms. The objectives for the non-agriculture market access negotiations were described in Paragraph 16, which read: We agree to negotiations which shall aim, by modalities to be agreed, to reduce or, as appropriate, eliminate tariffs, including the reduction or elimination of tariff peaks, high tariffs, and tariff escalation, as well as non-tariff barriers, in particular on products of export interest to developing countries. Product coverage shall be comprehensive and without a priori exclusions. The negotiations shall take fully into account the special needs and interests of developing and least-developed country participants, including through less than full reciprocity in reduction commitments... To this end, the modalities to be agreed will include appropriate studies and capacity-building measures to assist least-developed countries to participate effectively in the negotiations. The NAMA paragraph was short on specifics and left the modalities for the talks to negotiations. The general nature of the document reflected the reluctance of many members to sign up for the round, and the language has been characterized as the least common denominator of what could be agreed upon at the time. However, the declaration gives certain clues about what path the negotiations would take. First, the declaration showed a clear intent to address concerns of the developing countries by a commitment to reduce tariff peaks and escalations, to concentrate on products of export interest to developing countries, and to provide special and differential treatment (SDT), including "through less than full reciprocity in reduction commitments" which became a mantra for developing countries. However, the language on reducing tariff peaks, high tariffs, and escalation also suggests the desire for a degree of tariff harmonization. This, in turn, would suggest the use of a non-linear reduction formula (see " Tariff Reduction " below). Paragraph 16 allowed members to take away from the Ministerial what they wanted, and to return to specifics later. This initial ambiguity has haunted the negotiations to this day. Negotiations proceeded at a slow pace in 2002 and 2003. Several deadlines for agreement on negotiating modalities (i.e., methodologies by which negotiations are conducted) were missed in the agriculture and industrial market access talks. Without agreement, negotiators looked toward the September 2003 Cancún Ministerial to resolve the modalities. In the weeks before Cancún, negotiating documents to achieve this resolution were criticized by all sides, and expectations of the Ministerial were reduced to achieving an agreement on the framework for the modalities to be used in future negotiations. During this period, the United States favored an aggressive tariff-cutting negotiating strategy. In December 2002, the United States proposed the complete elimination of tariffs by 2015. This proposal would have eliminated "nuisance" tariffs (tariffs below 5%) and certain industrial sector tariffs by 2010, and would have removed remaining tariffs in five equal increments by 2015. This proposal applied to all countries and did not contain SDT language. Throughout the negotiations, the United States generally has sought to limit the scope of special and differential treatment, maintaining that it is in the developing countries' own interest to lower tariffs, not least to promote trade among developing countries. The initial European Union (EU) tariff reduction proposal relied on a "compression formula," one in which all tariffs are compressed in four bands with the highest band being 15%. A joint submission by the United States, Canada, and the EU before the Cancún Ministerial first proposed the use of a Swiss-style harmonization (i.e., non-linear) formula for tariff reduction. This joint paper did contain SDT language for developing countries in the form of credits awarded for unilateral liberalization activity. In the end, industrial market access was not even discussed at the Cancún Ministerial, which broke up over agriculture and the so-called "Singapore issues." Yet, a draft text from the Ministerial, known as the Derbez text, became the basis for the July 2004 Framework Agreement, which, in turn, formed the basis for subsequent negotiations. The July Framework Agreement reaffirmed the use of an unspecified non-linear formula applied line-by-line that provides flexibilities for developing countries. The text also supported the concept of sectoral tariff elimination as a complementary modality for tariff reduction on goods of particular export interest to developing countries, but it advanced no concrete proposal. In negotiating the July Framework, developing countries resisted the wholesale inclusion of the Derbez text. They insisted on a paragraph, included as the first paragraph of the text, indicating that "additional negotiations are required to reach agreement on the specifics of some of these elements," the elements being the formula, treatment of unbound tariffs, flexibilities for developing countries, participation in sectoral tariff modalities, and preferential tariff beneficiaries. As in the Doha Ministerial, ambiguity allowed for an immediate agreement, but sowed the seeds of future disagreement. As in other sectors, subsequent negotiations on NAMA have been conducted on the basis of the July Framework Agreement. Although it was hoped that modalities could be achieved in time for the 6 th Ministerial at Hong Kong, this proved optimistic, and progress was limited to incremental steps. For example, while the July Framework called for a non-linear, harmonizing tariff reduction formula, the Hong Kong Ministerial finally settled on the Swiss formula for tariff reduction, but did not settle on coefficients for that formula. At the Ministerial, WTO members agreed on a new deadline of April 30, 2006, to achieve final negotiating modalities and to establish draft schedules based on these modalities by July 31, 2006. These deadlines were not met, and after a contentious negotiating session on agriculture on July 23, 2006, Director-General Pascal Lamy suspended the Doha Round for a period that was to last approximately six months. Following the July 2006 suspension, several WTO country groups such as the G-20 and the Cairns Group of agricultural exporters met to lay the groundwork to restart the negotiations. Although these meeting did not yield any breakthrough, Lamy announced the talks were back in "full negotiating mode" on January 31, 2007. Key players in the talks, such as the G-4 (United States, European Union, Brazil, India), conducted bilateral or group meeting to break the impasse in the first months of the year. In April 2007, G-6 negotiators (G-4 plus Australia and Japan) agreed to work towards concluding the round by the end of 2007, yet a G-4 negotiating session in Potsdam collapsed anew in June 2007. On July 17, 2007, the chairman of the NAMA negotiating group released a modalities text to be considered by the negotiating committee. While this text proved controversial, it served as the basis for continued, if fruitless, Geneva negotiations for the next year with revisions to this text produced in February, May, July, and December 2008.