Clinton Asks 10 More Months on GATT Talks : World trade: Ignoring a long string of delays, President now wants to wrap up by Dec. 15 so reforms can kick in next spring.

Deadlocked world trade talks won a new lease on life Friday when President Clinton said he would ask Congress for 10 more months to iron out the disputes and finally clinch a deal.

Deadline after deadline have been pushed back in the labyrinthine GATT talks, which Clinton now wants to wrap up by Dec. 15 so reforms can kick in next spring. Trading partners welcomed Clinton’s move as a step forward in an ambitious and often fractious round of talks that has dragged on since 1986.

“Conventional wisdom says it will be difficult to complete this round, to expand and liberalize trade at a time when much of the economy is in doldrums,” White House spokeswoman Dee Dee Myers said.

Indeed, the ambitious deal eluded former President George Bush, in large part because of bitter differences over agriculture with Europe and Japan that continue to fester and hamper world growth.

“But the President believes that is precisely the time when we must do it. We ask other nations to join us in taking the sometimes-hard steps needed to bring the round to a successful conclusion,” Myers said in a statement.

She said Clinton wants lawmakers to extend his special negotiating authority until Dec. 15, which would give him broad leeway to try and wrap up the Uruguay Round of talks held under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

Under fast-track negotiating authority, Congress can consider the package in its entirety but offer no amendments.

Lawmakers would have until April 15 to debate and vote on the proposed deal to liberalize trade by setting new rules in everything from wheat to shoes to film rights.

The Clinton request had been long awaited by U.S. trading partners, many of whose economies are sputtering.

“This is excellent news for the Uruguay Round,” the European Community’s trade chief, Sir Leon Brittan, said in Brussels.

“The time allowed is sufficiently long for the remaining negotiations to take place but sufficiently short to put the necessary pressure on all concerned,” he said in a statement.

GATT proponents expect the tariff-cutting pact to inject trillions of dollars in trade into the moribund world economy.

Myers too said successful completion of the global trade talks “would be the single most important step we can take to open foreign markets around the world to U.S. manufactured goods, agricultural products and services.”

The requested authority, however, only covers the GATT talks and would give Clinton no freedom to pursue other deals, such as a possible free trade pact with Chile.

A senior Administration official brushed aside suggestions that the narrow request has put other trade matters on hold.

“The Administration is interested in pursuing other agreements,” he said, predicting more bills later this year.

“We have submitted to the Congress a request for a clean extension, given the urgency of the round and the need to get quick action on this,” he said on condition of anonymity.

Congress, however, is bound to tack on its own measures, such as tough, new enforcement tools loathed by U.S. trading partners, in return for giving Clinton jurisdiction over GATT.

Current fast-track authority is already effectively dead. Although the measure does not expire until June 1, Clinton had to submit a deal in early March to give Congress time to debate.

European officials had expressed skepticism about Clinton’s interest in the GATT talks, fearing a new U.S. preference for bilateral deals as well as an increased focus on emerging North American and Asian trading blocs.

Clinton’s announcement came days before U.S. negotiators are to sit down with Mexico and Canada to work on the North American Free Trade Agreement, central to trade policy under Clinton.