Mandelson rounds on 'fake' US  food aid

By Philip Thornton [shortened]
The Independent, 14 December 2005  
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article333069.ece

The  opening day of the high-profile trade summit in Hong Kong got off to a  
disastrous start yesterday. A bitter war of words broke out between Europe, 
the  US and the United Nations, and demonstrators wrought havoc inside and 
outside  the convention centre. 

Peter Mandelson, the EU's trade chief, triggered  a row when he branded the 
US food aid programme, which delivers American produce  to needy countries, as 
"fake" aid designed to help US farmers rather than the  world's poor.

He rejected demands by his US counterpart that it was up to  Europe to break 
the deadlock in the stalled World Trade Organisation  negotiations. "He does 
not have an export subsidy fund so it is very generous of  him to make that 
commitment," Mr Mandelson told delegates from developing  countries. "He does 
have a large amount of fake food aid so if he were to give a  commitment to deal 
with his fake food aid that would a more interesting  proposal."

He went on: "The large, structured US programme of 'in kind'  food aid is 
designed in reality to give support to US agricultural producers. It  distorts 
trade and depresses local production.

"Statistics show that this  aid is directly related to the price shifts for 
the commodities concerned on the  US market."