BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) - Brazil and the United States urged compromise Tuesday in the struggle to build the world's largest trade pact in the Americas but both sides clung to bargaining positions that remain continents apart.
The two major players in the talks are trying to bridge deep divisions over the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas before a key meeting of the hemisphere's trade ministers in Miami next month.
"We still have a ways to go in that dialogue," said Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Peter Allgeier, who was in Brazil to promote the U.S. vision of a trade pact uniting 34 nations and nearly 800 million people between Alaska and Patagonia.
At the heart of the dispute between the United States and Brazil are issues of U.S. farm subsidies and the scope and depth of the trade pact meant to go into force on Jan. 1, 2005.
Brazil emerged from global trade talks in Mexico last month as a leader of poorer nations in their fight to reduce U.S. and European farm subsidies. But it found its leadership role greatly diminished this month in a Free Trade Area of the Americas meeting in Trinidad and Tobago.
The United States and many Latin American nations rejected a proposal by Brazil and its Mercosur trade pact ally, Argentina, for a small-scale FTAA if farm goods were excluded from talks.
Both Brazil and the United States are struggling to budge from their positions to let the FTAA talks move forward.
"We're not going to run away from the negotiating table," President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told legislators Monday night. "The focus of the question isn't whether to say 'yes' or 'no' to the FTAA, but to define which FTAA interests us."
Brazil is one of the world largest producers of commodities like sugar, coffee, meat, soja and orange juice. It is unwilling to give the United States greater access to its markets without more opportunities in U.S. agricultural markets.
Brazil currently rejects a one-size-fits-all, comprehensive agreement. It would prefer bilateral deals within the accord on sensitive issues such as intellectual property rights and investment.
The United States, for its part, says it will only negotiate domestic farm subsidies at the level of global trade talks that would also tackle aid given to European farmers.
Allgeier said the Americas trade agreement would only work if all nations played by the same rules and offered companies clarity on regulation ranging from financial markets to telecommunications companies.
"This is not just a U.S. conclusion. This is a view that's held by the countries in Central America, certainly most of the countries in the Andean community, in the Caricom (15 Caribbean Community nations), Chile, even by some countries within Mercosur," Allgeier told reporters.
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