Eddie Smith, a cotton producer in Floydada, Tex., and the chairman of the National Cotton Council of America, called the agreement “a positive development in this very long dispute.”
He said in a statement the deal “
avoids the immediately harmful economic effects of trade retaliation and it puts the serious discussion concerning changes in the U.S. cotton program before Congress in the 2012 farm bill.”
The Brazilian government said the preliminary agreement “may establish the basis for a future and final mutually satisfactory solution for the dispute.” In a statement,
the government said it “expects the parties to reach an understanding that makes it unnecessary to adopt the retaliation measures authorized by the W.T.O.”
The Brazilian government, under pressure from its cotton growers, filed the case in 2002. In 2005, and again in 2008, the W.T.O. found that the American agricultural subsidies violated trade agreements.