World Trade Organisation (WTO) states failed yet again today to break a deadlock in negotiations but insisted that the global free trade round was not dead.
At late-night crisis talks on Friday, major trade powers agreed a more prominent future role for WTO chief Pascal Lamy in the search for compromise after two more days of hard negotiating healed no divisions between them over farm and industrial goods.
"We have clearly reached something of an impasse here. But does that mean the round is dead? No. We have no intention of giving up hope," U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab told a news conference.
India's Industry and Commerce Minister Kamal Nath was even more forthright. "There is no need to pretend that this has not been a failure," he told journalists.
Despite warnings by Mr Lamy that the future of the WTO round hung by a thread, the top trading powers have been unable to agree on how far rich nations should go in slashing farm subsidies and tariffs and developing countries in opening their manufacturing markets.
Without a deal in these key areas this weekend, Mr Lamy had said that the WTO could run out of time to conclude the round, which also includes complex issues such as services, by the end of the year which is the absolute cut-off. Beyond agreeing that Mr Lamy should try and act as honest broker, ministers laid out no new path for getting to the deadline for a deal and set no further date to meet.
The talks stalled late Friday at the end of the first of an originally scheduled three days of negotiations between ministers from some 60 WTO states who had hoped to settle the core issues that are delaying progress on the overall round.
Developing countries said they would not let rich nations negotiate away the primary purpose of the Doha round -- to give economic opportunities to millions living in poverty.
"We are not here to bend backwards to accommodate more market access for industrialised nations. We are not going to allow ourselves to be blamed for any failure," said Zambian Trade Minister Dipak Patel.
The talks pit the European Union and the United States against each other and against leading developing states.
The United States is resisting pressure to give ground on farm subsidies, which developing countries say prevent them competing on world markets.
Talk by the EU that it could be more flexible on farm import tariffs was not enough for a deal.
"The U.S. is not in a position to settle for some mediocre version of a trade round that doesn't deliver real market access and new trade flows," Ms Schwab said.
Developing countries said concessions by the rich WTO states on farm trade are a condition for them to cut industrial tariffs, the other half of a hoped-for bargain in Geneva. But rich state demands on manufacturing were excessive. The WTO must complete the round by the end of the year because special U.S. presidential powers to negotiate on trade will expire next year and Congress looks unlikely to renew them.