Goals of eliminating high agricultural tariffs and subsidies in the United States and the European Union, promoting development among poor nations and reducing industrial tariffs in emerging developing countries like India and Brazil appear more distant than expected.

Ministers are slated to meet in Geneva by April 30 to formalize tariff schedules that will eliminate trade barriers in the world's richest agriculture-producing nations and reduce high tariffs on industrial goods. Trade chiefs from the 'Group of Six' nations, which include the United States, European Union, Japan, Brazil, India and Australia, have been trying for the last several months to hammer out formula cuts in two of the most sensitive areas in negotiations: agriculture and industrial products.

But with deadlock and little progress made earlier this month in Rio de Janeiro, ministers are concerned that adequate progress will not be made soon enough to keep with the timeline set by negotiators at the close of the Hong Kong ministerial last December.

U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman described talks last week in Brazil with the six ministers as discouraging.

"We did not make adequate progress. We made incremental, but not adequate progress," said Portman.

In Brussels, European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson affirmed commitments by the 25-member bloc to meet demands to complete an ambitious result by the end of the year. However, he criticized other members of the World Trade Organization for not matching the EU's offers and exploring "further flexibilities and overtures on the basis of the current offers."

Mandelson singled out the U.S. Congress for questioning the level of ambition that can be achieved in the Doha Round.

"There is more in the DDA than narrow commercial give and take. All main parties to the talks should be prepared to offer more to get more and to create a bigger deal for the overall economy, with developing countries as the main beneficiaries," said Mandelson. "This again is one of the main messages given to me today by the EU Member States."

Last week, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., offered a bleak perspective on the prospect of concluding an ambitious round before the expiration of Trade Promotion Authority and questioned whether or not the administration should continue to place resources at the WTO or put more resources into bilateral trade deals.

"For anyone hoping somehow there's going to be a significant conclusion to the Doha Round, my apologies," said Thomas, in a speech last week at the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank in Washington, D.C. "Obviously, we don't just walk away. Whatever we can accomplish, whatever the last whiny note is of the Doha Round, we should soldier on and try to do the best we can. But that should not be, in my opinion, where the United States puts its major resources -- limited as they are -- over the next three months."

Portman, who has pursued both a wide range of bilateral trade pacts as well as the Doha Round, said a breakthrough in negotiations would be reliant on the "political will" of trade negotiators.

"I don't think there's anything the United States can do through our policy with a country to necessarily move the Doha Round forward," said Portman. "It takes political will on the part of other countries, and specifically it takes political will in the area of market access."

Director-General of the WTO Pascal Lamy urged trade ministers Monday to make necessary progress in order to complete talks ahead of the expiration of U.S. legislation in July 2007 that gives the administration a wide range of powers to get trade pacts through Congress.

"We have little time to waste and a huge task in front of us," said Lamy, in a speech before the Indian Council for Research on International Relations. "What is needed in these days is hard work, determination and nerves to focus on the final goal: a strengthening of the multilateral trading system to the benefit of all but in particular developing countries."

Lamy called the United States, EU and India to make significant progress in order to break the impasse in global trade talks.

"The key to progressing towards the success of the Round lies today in their hands," said Lamy.

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