The goal of this meeting was to set a direction for nations within the WTO to negotiate agreements on agriculture, non-agricultural market access, services, and special treatment for developing countries.
Although the agreements had a set date to come to terms, the Cancun Ministerial Conference ended up failing in its mission and did not come to any firm decisions to fix the problems it sought to address.
Participants failed to make global trade negotiations concrete and foundered at that time, so the next steps were uncertain.
[3] During the World Trade Organization meeting in Cancun in 2003, held from 10 to 14 September 2003, there were numerous topics that drew much attention.
The developing nations withdrew from the talks, raising concerns about a European Union proposal aiming to position investment and antitrust issues as the main agenda matters.
[5] The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), analysing the divisions which arose at the conference and their impact on the outcome,[1] found that there were multiple factors explaining why the meeting between all the countries ended with no agreements globally on any of the issues brought forward.
Without this compromise, the United States and the European nations felt no inclination to cut down subsidies and help these developing countries economically without a fair agreement on trade.
John Tsang, then Hong Kong's Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology and chair of the Sixth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization, MC6, said that following Cancún, "negotiations could no longer be dictated by the US and the EU, the two Big Beasts in the WTO jungle".