Trade Ministers Fail to Resolve Rift on Farms : Commerce: The main sticking point is a European Community refusal to cut its subsidies deeply enough.

KITASHIOBARA, Japan — Trade ministers from four regions failed Sunday to solve an impasse over agricultural trade subsidies that has stalled key international trade talks.

Officials from the United States, Canada, Japan and the European Community said they had decided not to set a deadline for a conclusion of the talks, and reported little concrete progress in three days of informal discussions in this resort area in the mountains north of Tokyo.

“We felt that putting a deadline on the negotiations would be counterproductive,” Japan’s minister of international trade and industry, Kozo Watanabe, said.

Negotiators have failed to meet several earlier deadlines for the so-called Uruguay Round of trade talks. Disagreements between the United States and the European Community over the EC’s subsidies for agricultural exports are the main topic blocking conclusion of the talks.

“We want very much to have a successful outcome, and we want that outcome to be as rapid as possible,” said U.S. Trade Representative Carla Anderson Hills. “We are doing everything in our power to sweep away the impediments.”

She said the United States is unsatisfied with a compromise proposal that EC President Jacques Delors made last week in Washington. It calls for a smaller reduction in EC subsidies.

The proposal is “very difficult, not just for the U.S., but for the . . . countries of the Cairns group (and) Latin American countries,” Hills said.

The Cairns group consists of nations that are large agricultural exporters.

The dispute involves the percentage by which the EC should cut its farm export subsidies. The EC has balked at calls for it to cut the total volume of agricultural products it subsidizes by 24%. Delors reportedly made an offer to President Bush to make cuts at an undisclosed smaller level.

European nations fear that many of their farmers would be forced off their land under the subsidy-reduction plan. The United States and other farm exporters want greater market access for their products.

Hills, Watanabe, Canadian Trade Minister Michael Wilson and EC Commission Vice President Frans Andriessen focused on the Uruguay Round and other trade issues during their talks here, the 21st regular quadrilateral meeting of trade ministers since such gatherings began 10 years ago.

Japan, Canada and the EC expressed concern about the possible repercussions of a recent U.S. decision to apply its antitrust laws against U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies that unfairly restrict American exports in their home territories, EC officials said.

In another area, Japan proposed that rules be established to ensure that any linkages between trade and environmental protection be done in ways that minimize negative effects on trade, and the ministers agreed to discuss the topic at future meetings.

The four regions had hoped to achieve progress in solving the agricultural rift before a summit in Munich in early July of leaders of the seven industrialized nations.