Brazil's ambassador to WTO said on Monday that Brazil asked the WTO to approve Brazil's $2 billion 500 million sanctions against US cotton subsidies.

Ambassador Roberto Azevedo said they had made a request to the WTO dispute settlement mechanism in Geneva.

He said we asked WTO to sanction the sanctions, and $2 billion 500 million would be used to compensate Brazil for its injuries in 1998 2000.

He said that if a big country violates the WTO rules without sanctions, then the credibility of the WTO will be affected.

In June last year, the WTO mechanism supported Brazil's prosecution and declared that the US cotton subsidy violated the WTO rules.

For the first time in 2002, Brazil submitted the US cotton subsidy to the WTO.

From 1999 to 2002, cotton subsidies in the United States amounted to about $12 billion.

After ratification of Brazil's request by WTO, Brazil may impose more than 1 billion dollars on retaliatory sanctions against the United States.

Non governmental organizations criticized Washington's US cotton subsidies. They said that cotton subsidies in the United States had lowered world cotton prices, and poorer growers in poorer countries, especially cotton growers in African countries.

The African cotton growing countries (C4), Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali, have been fighting the cotton issue since 2003, including in the Doha Round negotiations.

Editor in chief: Xu Qiyun