President George W. Bush told West Africa's cotton producers that US subsidies to American cotton growers were a matter for Washington, Benin's President Boni Yayi said on February 19.
Yayi was speaking at a joint press conference with Bush, who spent three hours in the small west African country at the beginning of a five-nation tour of the continent.
Bush "considers that the question of these subsidies was an American matter, and told me that he was well aware of the importance of this sector in the life of our people," Yayi said.
The US leader advised West African countries to grow cotton and process it for added value.
Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali have been battling at the World Trade Organisation for an end to export subsidies and other incentives provided by western industrialised countries, particularly the United States, to their cotton farmers.
A US official said Washington was appealing a WTO ruling upholding Brazil's complaint that US farm subsidies, particularly to cotton growers, violate global trade rules. The United States claims it is now in full compliance with the WTO's earlier recommendations and rulings.
Agriculture is a main sticking point in the six-year-old Doha Round of WTO trade negotiations.
The United States and the European Union are under pressure to cut their farm subsidies but demand in return that other WTO members, notably developing nations like Brazil and India, reduce their tariffs on imported industrial goods.
