NEWS ANALYSIS : Not Much Beef for Bush to Take Home : Trade: In the absence of a global agreement, the President heralds the G-7’s pledge of economic growth.

President Bush, while disappointed that the leaders of the industrialized world failed again to reach an agreement on international trade at this week’s summit, insisted Wednesday that he had won long-term commitments for worldwide economic growth that will ultimately benefit American consumers.

Yet Bush and his senior advisers conceded that the seven-nation Munich summit produced little of short-term value to a domestic economy burdened by rising unemployment and faltering growth.

And the leaders of the other six biggest industrial nations openly dismissed the significance of the summit’s U.S.-sponsored pro-growth pledge, which the Bush Administration touted as a critical element in its efforts to persuade the other nations to reduce their interest rates.

Just as Bush was heralding the growth measures as his clearest economic achievement at the three-day annual summit, British Prime Minister John Major was telling reporters in a separate press conference here that the United States had won “no specific agreements” on growth or rate cuts from the other powers.

The outcome was especially troubling for an Administration that has always looked to the international side of the ledger for victories to offset its long string of defeats in domestic economics.

Stretching for positives to emphasize as the summit ended, Administration economic policy-makers talked of issues that had nothing to do with economics. They noted the indirect ways in which the Group of Seven’s commitment to an acceleration of financial aid and debt relief for Russia would work as an “investment” to avert a renewal of the Cold War and make America a safer place.

Administration officials also said that the G-7’s plan to spend $650 million to clean up old and unsafe Soviet-designed nuclear reactors in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union would help avert another nuclear catastrophe like the 1986 accident at Chernobyl.

“Sometimes preventing things from happening is just as important as taking new initiatives,” a senior Administration official said in a briefing with reporters Wednesday.

Even concerning Russia, the United States suffered something of a rebuff from its partners. After Bush suggested last week in Washington that Russia should be given membership in an expanded Group of Eight, the British, Japanese and other members openly opposed the idea, and Bush backed off from the proposal Wednesday.

Officials acknowledged that Bush was growing so frustrated with the lack of substance in the annual economic summits that he has openly discussed the notion of going a year or two without another one.

Without much new economic beef to take home from Munich, the President was left to express his frustration with the 60% of Americans who still, according to an opinion poll cited by Bush, believe that the economy is getting worse.

“It’s not; it is improving,” Bush insisted at a post-summit press conference. “Now, maybe not fast enough, but it is improving. There’s a gap between perception and reality.”

The Munich summit raised new questions about whether the long U.S. dominance of the annual sessions may be a thing of the past now that the powerhouses of Europe and Asia are asserting their economic might.

The Germans, for example, were particularly open in brushing off American demands for stimulative, pro-growth economic policies. The Bush Administration was hoping for some action by the Germans to lower their sky-high interest rates, but German Chancellor Helmut Kohl refused to put any open pressure on his nation’s fiercely independent central bank.

The diminished U.S. role was most visible in the summit’s negotiations on trade. The Bush Administration, after initially dampening expectations for a trade agreement here, raised them again as the summit opened Monday, after apparently deciding that there was little else here that offered Bush a chance to come home looking like a winner.

But Bush found it impossible to persuade French President Francois Mitterrand to agree to a compromise on the critical stumbling block on reductions in agricultural subsidies. The French face a sensitive referendum on European unity Sept. 20, which forced them to back away from any other controversial initiatives.

In their official economic communique at the close of the summit Wednesday, Bush and the other G-7 leaders agreed to try to conclude the current round of world trade talks by the end of the year--a commitment they had also made in 1990 and 1991.

But there are other major unresolved issues besides the U.S.-French dispute on farm subsidies, and a breakthrough there will still need to be followed by months of hard bargaining on other trade provisions.

The summit revealed that Bush seemed to have placed international trade near the top of his agenda, after years of allowing the negotiations to languish in political obscurity.

But without an agreement in the global, market-opening trade negotiations, Bush may push more urgently for an agreement with Mexico and Canada on a North American Free Trade Agreement. Administration officials, in fact, say it is possible that Bush may announce an accord with Mexico next week in San Diego.