[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 41, Number 46 (Monday, November 21, 2005)]
[Page 1718]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Statement on the Doha Development Agenda

November 14, 2005

    Prime Minister Blair has challenged World Trade Organization members 
to ensure that the Doha Development Agenda fulfills its market-opening 
potential that would help lift hundreds of millions of people out of 
poverty. I welcome and endorse his call for action to ensure a 
successful outcome to the Doha round.
    To achieve this ambitious agenda, all WTO members will have to do 
their part. To give impetus to Doha, I called for the reduction and then 
elimination of trade-distorting agricultural subsidies and tariffs. If 
the EU offers similar real cuts to agricultural subsidies and tariffs, 
others will also have to come forward with significant proposals to cut 
tariffs and reduce barriers on manufactured goods and services.
    The Doha Development Agenda is vital to promoting development. 
Through the pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals and the G-8 
agreement to cancel 100 percent of the debt of the world's most heavily 
indebted nations, we have made good progress on aid and debt relief. 
However, trade is the engine for a sustained expansion of prosperity 
around the world. Through a successful Doha round, we can realize that 
opportunity.