The United States and the European Union accused each other on Thursday of being unwilling to make concessions to clinch a global free trade deal before time runs out.
Despite a now-or-never warning from World Trade Organisation (WTO) chief Pascal Lamy, key WTO members appeared to be showing less flexibility than before, said the foreign minister of farm export powerhouse Brazil. "I have the impression that the gaps have actually widened or at least have become more rigid," Celso Amorim told reporters.
Some 60 ministers, a third of the WTO, are gathering in Geneva in a bid to thrash out a pact on farm and manufacturing trade, core areas of the WTO's troubled Doha round. Without a deal now to slash farm subsidies and tariffs in agricultural and industrial goods, Lamy says negotiators will fail to wrap up the round this year as they need to do.
Billed as a chance to boost the global economy and lift millions out of poverty, the round's failure could heighten protectionist pressures, officials have warned.
But US officials have not signalled any willingness to sweeten an offer on farm subsidies and the EU's stance still does not go as far as Washington wants in cutting farm tariffs.
"We all know that the Doha Development Agenda is coming to a crunch point," said European Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, referring to the round's official name. "We will not make progress if negotiators remain in entrenched positions."
Mandelson said Brussels was ready - if others make concessions too - to move "towards and close" to proposals advanced by the G20 group of developing countries and which Lamy and others see as a possible middle ground.
But the United States says the G20 position on tariff cuts for developed nations is too low. The United States wants some 66 percent, while the current offer from Brussels stands at 39 percent, and Washington insists that the EU has to do much more.
"Going close to (the) G20 (proposal) is not going to break free enough economic trade flows," a senior US trade official told reporters. But Trade Minister Christine Lagarde of France, the staunchest defender of EU protections for farmers, said Brussels had already gone far enough and denied Mandelson had the authority to cut tariffs further.
Whether progress is possible at the Geneva meeting, which starts officially at the WTO on Friday, may become clear when ministers from the G6 group meet on Thursday afternoon.
The group - Australia, Brazil, the European Union, India, Japan and the United States - has spearheaded the drive for a farm deal given the range of interests it represents.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the US official said Washington would wait for other countries to meet its suggestions on cracking open farm markets rather than make new concessions on cutting its domestic subsidies.
But Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath warned that without some indication from Washington that it was ready to move on subsidies the talks would quickly fail.
"I will ring up my travel agent to get a flight home," he said when asked what would happen if the United States came forward with nothing new at the G6 meeting on Thursday.
The WTO must complete the round - which also includes services and a host of other issues - by the end of the year because special US presidential powers to negotiate on trade will expire next year and Congress looks unlikely to renew them.