* Slow Doha Round pace increases frustration over cotton
* Follows successful Brazilian challenge in WTO court
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GENEVA, Dec 1 (Reuters) - African cotton producers will consider taking legal action against Washington if harmful U.S. subsidies are not repealed promptly, Burkina Faso Trade Minister Mamadou Sanou said on Tuesday.
Speaking to journalists during a World Trade Organisation ministerial meeting in Geneva, Sanou said it was not reasonable for poor African states to wait until the beleaguered Doha Round of trade negotiations wraps up for the market distortions to be fixed.
"We cannot wait for ever because our entire cotton industry will disappear," he said. "If we were to take a case against the United States, it would be our right. It is not a threat. We are entitled to do so in an entirely fair-play fashion."
Last month the WTO's court authorised Brazil to impose trade sanctions on Washington in a similar dispute over U.S. cotton subsidies. [ID:nN19192200] The United States is the world's biggest cotton exporter.
Earlier on Tuesday, South African Trade Minister Rob Davies said that Washington should enact cotton subsidy cuts before the rest of the Doha Round deal is complete.
"That would be fair and just," he told Reuters in an interview. "The situation of cotton farmers in West Africa is desperate, that is the reality, and it has only gotten worse with the onset of the crisis." (Reporting by Jason Rhodes and Laura MacInnis, editing by Mark Trevelyan) ((geneva.newsroom@reuters.com; Tel. +41 79 240 9036))