WASHINGTON—Trade negotiators for the United States and the 25-nation European Union reported no breakthroughs Wednesday after two days of discussions aimed at narrowing differences on farm trade that have stalled global trade talks.

Both U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman and EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson expressed optimism that the differences can be resolved in time to complete the Doha round of trade talks by the end of this year.

But Mandelson pointedly said the EU will not make a better offer to lower European barriers to farm trade until major emerging economies such as Brazil and India go farther in offering to lower their barriers to manufactured goods and services such as banking and insurance.

“The way forward is not in trading blows in agriculture,” Mandelson said during a joint news conference with Portman. He said the best approach was for major developing countries to improve their offers in non-agricultural areas and only then would the EU be willing to improve its farm proposal.

“Failing this, the round will not succeed,” Mandelson said.

Portman, who has been urging the EU to improve its farm offer, said that all countries needed to “undertake the political will” to make the difficult decisions needed to complete the trade talks, which are being held under the auspices of the 149-nation World Trade Organization.

The two days of talks between Portman and Mandelson were aimed at preparing for broader Doha negotiations leading to an April 30 deadline for arriving at formulas for cutting tariffs on agricultural products and manufactured goods and for reducing trade-distorting farm subsidies.

This goal has already been missed a number of times since the Doha round of trade talks were launched in the Middle East nation of Qatar in late 2001.

The United States and other nations have been pushing for the EU to make deeper reductions in EU tariffs on farm products as a way to prompt developing countries to offer more in terms of lowering their barriers to manufactured goods and services.

But in a separate briefing, Mandelson told reporters that the EU negotiating position will not change.

“There will be no further agricultural offer by the European Union unless and until we are given an incentive to look again at the offer we’ve already made,” he said, indicating the need for developing countries to put more on the table.

“Even then the proof of the pudding will be on what others choose to put into this round,” he said.

Mandelson and Portman said they had also discussed pending U.S.-EU trade disputes including a WTO case in which both sides have accused the other of WTO-illegal subsidies to aircraft manufacturers Boeing and Airbus.

Mandelson told reporters that the EU was willing to go back to the bargaining table to try to reach a negotiated settlement of the issue rather than pursuing a WTO case.

“I’m ready to look at any proposal for negotiations provided that the direct and indirect subsidies to Boeing are on the table in the same way as European support for Airbus would be up for negotiation,” he said. “There is still time to find a negotiated way out.”

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER – AP ECONOMICS WRITER
Associated Press Writer Harry Dunphy in Washington contributed to this report.

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