WASHINGTON - The Bush administration reported no breakthroughs Saturday in informal discussions aimed at trying to resolve deep differences between the United States and Brazil over the scope of a hemisphere-wide free trade agreement.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick and trade ministers from 15 other nations wrapped up two days of talks in the Washington area on the creation of a Free Trade Area of the Americas. The FTAA, which would span the Western Hemisphere and cover 34 countries, is a key economic goal of the Bush administration.
The meetings come about a week before a much larger gathering of trade ministers in Miami, which some fear could end in failure.
At the conclusion of Saturday's talks, a senior U.S. trade official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, did not report any areas where the differences between the United States and Brazil had been narrowed.
However, the official said that the discussions had been useful in helping the trade ministers understand more fully the positions of the other countries involved in the effort.
Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim described Saturday's meeting as "positive."
He said the United States and Brazil both presented some ideas that could be the basis for continuing the negotiations beyond Miami.
Brazil had pressed the United States to negotiate over agriculture subsidies and anti-dumping tariffs — something the United States has refused to do. In turn, Brazil has threatened to table discussion of investment and intellectual property rights — something of great interest to U.S. companies.
Asked if he felt that the Miami meeting, scheduled for the week of Nov. 17, could succeed, the U.S. official said negotiators have their work cut out for them.
"It is going to be a challenge," he said. "But I feel certainly better about it today than I did two days ago because I think that we got some useful insight in this meeting."
The U.S. official refused to confirm that one idea being floated is that if countries seek to limit the areas covered by a free trade agreement, then they would not receive the full benefits of the pact.
"We're pushing to get as comprehensive an agreement as possible, and so I think it's probably premature to get into speculation about that kind of degree of balancing," the official said.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. NoNonsense English offers this material non-commercially for research and educational purposes. I believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, i.e. the media service or newspaper which first published the article online and which is indicated at the top of the article unless otherwise specified.