Brazil’s Nazi reference threatens WTO talks

SOME pre-negotiation jabbing turned into a potentially damaging diplomatic incident when Brazil’s foreign minister said rich countries’ deception in trade talks reminded him of tactics used by Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels.

The controversy threatens to overshadow this week’s last-ditch effort to save seven years of frustrating talks on a new global trade pact toward alleviating global poverty.

The comments by Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim drew a rebuke from the US, whose chief trade negotiator, Susan Schwab, is the daughter of Jewish Holocaust survivors. Her spokesman described the reference to Goebbels as “incredibly wrong”.