Brinkmanship not breakthroughs dominate crucial WTO trade talks

The brinkmanship fits a pattern that has seen several previous meetings since 2001 collapse without a deal.

“Progress has been modest until now,” WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy conceded in comments to the organisation’s 153 members, his spokesman Keith Rockwell said Wednesday.

But Rockwell suggested there had been an “intensification” of talks during and since a ministerial meeting late on Tuesday.

In London, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned that the talks were at “the 11th hour” and “a critical moment.”

“If we do not succeed in the next few days, then it is very difficult to imagine people returning quickly to the negotiating table to secure the outcome that is needed,” he said.

The US on Tuesday offered to cut official aid to its farmers to 15 billion dollars a year, two billion dollars more than a previous offer, in a bid to spur movement at the WTO talks but found no support from key player Brazil. The US overture came after an attempt by EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson to jolt the talks into movement on Monday with an announcement that the European Union was now ready to extend tariff cuts on agricultural products to 60 percent from 54 percent.

Nath, who arrived late because of a confidence vote against the government in the Indian parliament on Tuesday, called the US offer “wholly inadequate” on Wednesday.