The Chamber's Doha Trade Delegation just wrapped up two days of meetings in Brussels, Belgium with key EU trade officials and EU business groups to discuss ways to unlock the long-stalled Doha Round of World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations. I am here with senior company officials, and key Chamber members, to demonstrate our strong desire to see an ambitious and successful outcome to the talks.

While in Brussels we met with DG Trade Director-General David O'Sullivan, key officials to EU Commission President Baroso and EU Trade Commissioner de Gucht, key members of the EU Parliament Committee on International Trade (INTA), Business Europe and AmCham EU among others.  We had some very constructive meetings where we exchanged views and perspectives on where the Doha Round stands and how we can break the continued logjam. The Peterson Institute's excellent recent study Figuring Out the Doha Round, was a key point of discussion in all of our meetings.  Our delegation strongly expressed our view that we need to find a way to shore up the ambition of what is currently on the table if we are going to have any hope of getting to an endgame in Doha. The Peterson study highlights some key areas (Services, Sectoral negotiations in the industrial goods or "NAMA" pillar of the negotiations and Trade Facilitation) that would help top up the ambition in the Round which would be a win-win for both developed, and more importantly, developing countries.

Notably, the Chamber (in conjunction with other US business groups like the National Association of Manufacturers and Coalition of Service Industries) is finalizing a letter with Business Europe, which is an association of more than 40 European industrial federations and employer groups, to USTR Ron Kirk and EU Trade Commissioner de Gucht urging the U.S. and EU to work together to seek more ambition in Doha. That letter will be sent in the days ahead. Working together, the U.S. and EU can pave the way for a successful conclusion to the Round. Of course, a successful conclusion will require a stronger contribution from countries like Brazil, China and India. Those countries are much bigger players in the global economy than they were in 2001 when Doha was launched.

Off to Geneva to the pulse of the negotiations...