European trade chief Peter Mandelson said on Friday he was encouraged by President George W. Bush's support for global trade talks, but the United States still has to make a new offer to unblock the negotiations.
"I applaud the desire of the United States to press for the most ambitious possible outcome to this round. But you cannot get that simply by pushing others to move," Mandelson said in a speech ahead of key trade talks in Geneva next week. The United States says the EU must make real concessions on farm trade to free up the World Trade Organisation's Doha round.
But Washington has come under pressure from the EU and big developing nations such as Brazil to make the next move. The round was launched in 2001 to boost the world's economy and help poor countries. But is two years behind schedule and Mandelson said the costs of failure would be "truly enormous."
Mandelson said he was "most encouraged" after Bush told an EU-US summit this week Washington was committed to the round. But the United States had to go further with cutting farm subsidies in order to encourage developing countries to cut their tariffs on industrial goods, he said.
Talking to reporters later, Mandelson said he had not seen signs of an actual change in the US position from Bush at the summit on Wednesday nor from US Trade Representative Susan Schwab, whom he met in London on Monday.
"I did not get those signals but I did not expect to do so," he said. About 50 ministers from WTO countries meet in Geneva from June 29 for negotiations originally intended to reach a deal on agricultural and industrial goods, two pillars of the round. But senior negotiators have recently said any such deal might now only be possible in late July.
Despite the apparent deadlock, WTO Director General Pascal Lamy has said he is more optimistic because the United States, the EU and developing countries seemed more ready to compromise. "We are much nearer to an agreement than ever before," Lamy was quoted as saying by The New York Times on Friday.
As well as pressing Washington on subsidies, the G20 group of developing nations wants Brussels to cut its farm import tariff by an average 54 percent. So far, the EU has offered 39 percent but Mandelson has said he would move towards the G20 demands, if others make concessions too. The United States has dismissed the EU move as just a sweetener on proposals it says are far too conservative.
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