WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Trade officials from 14 countries met in Wye River, Md., this week to keep up talks on a Western Hemisphere free-trade agreement amid uncertainty about global trade liberalization.
Senior officials from the U.S., Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Colombia among others were on hand for the informal dialogue on the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas, which proponents hope to finish as soon as January 2005.
"I thought people were quite objective about their situations and quite candid," a senior U.S. trade official told reporters Friday after the meetings.
The meetings didn't involve negotiation on particular issues such as intellectual property rights and agriculture, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We're not discussing things at that degree of detail," the official said.
The U.S. representative said all countries in the Western Hemisphere trade talks seem to view agricultural trade as "a global problem" best addressed by the WTO in its current Doha round of negotiations, which is also scheduled to run until January 2005.
The WTO talks have been thrown into doubt by the inability of the European Union and other economies to agree on ways to reduce farm subsidies and increase food-market access.
The official noted skepticism Venezuela has shown toward the U.S.-backed hemispheric free trade plan, and said each country would have to decide itself whether to participate.
Discussion of the Free Trade Area of the Americas is expected to continue in various venues, including a vice ministerial meeting next month in El Salvador and a November meeting in Miami of Western Hemisphere trade ministers, the official said.
-By Campion Walsh; Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9291; campion.walsh@dowjones.com
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