Breakthrough Eludes Trade Negotiators

Last-ditch talks to keep alive hopes of a global free-trade deal faced a deepening crisis today after trading powers failed to achieve a breakthrough at a marathon first session on Sunday in Geneva, diplomats said.

The so-called G-6 -- Australia, Brazil, India, Japan, the European Union and the United States -- must reach agreement on how to boost trade in farm and industrial goods or risk seeing nearly five years of negotiations by the World Trade Organization crumble in failure.

But 14 hours of negotiations Sunday failed to advance in the area of farm subsidies, where the United States is under pressure to make further concessions. The talks are being chaired by WTO chief Pascal Lamy.

“There was no movement at all on domestic support. We will meet again tomorrow to see if things have changed overnight, whether new ideas have popped up,” European Union Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel told Reuters.

Diplomats say another failure by the six entities, which have already made several “last ditch” attempts at a deal, would leave the 149-state WTO without enough time to complete all the complex details of a global free-trade treaty by the end of the year.

Lamy has scheduled an additional two days of talks for Friday and Saturday, but diplomats said that without some progress this weekend there could be little point in a further meeting.