Trying to boost prospects for a successful hemispheric trade summit in Miami, the United States and Brazil attempted to address tensions over trade but reported no progress Saturday on dispelling their differences.
Nevertheless, the major players emerged from daylong talks upbeat about the constructive discussions.
Trade ministers from 16 countries out of the 34 involved met in a hastily arranged meeting to discuss what should be on the negotiating table for the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas.
''We now have a good basis for a successful meeting in Miami,'' Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said in a conference call after the meeting, which was held at the Lansdowne Resort outside Washington.
But Amorim also underlined that there is no break in the deadlock over the trade agenda. ''The substantive issues were not resolved,'' Amorim said.
Amorim met with U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick for two hours Friday in preparation for the Saturday talks in an attempt to reduce the tensions that mounted after World Trade Organization talks collapsed in Cancún, Mexico, in September. An October meeting of deputy trade ministers from the FTAA countries also ended in an impasse between Brazil and the United States. The two countries are leading the FTAA negotiations.
A senior U.S. trade official, who asked not to be named, said there was a ''very useful discussion'' among the 16 trade ministers that focused on the framework for trade negotiations.
''I feel better about it today than I did two days ago,'' the U.S. official said.
But it was clear that Brazil was reluctant to negotiate some of the issues raised by Zoellick, including investment rules, access for service companies and intellectual property rights as long as Washington insisted that farm subsidies could be negotiated only in world trade talks.
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