Despite Doha blitz, U.S. unhurried in trade talks

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The World Trade Organization may want to jump-start world trade talks, but the United States "will take the time it needs" to clinch a favorable deal, a key Bush administration official said on Thursday.

Most trade analysts maintain that a breakthrough in the Doha Round must come in the next few months to spur Congress to renew the Bush administration's negotiating authority for a pact. Right now, the White House's ability to broker deals on a "fast track" basis without lawmaker changes ends in July.

It's a view not necessarily shared by the administration.

"I don't think the urgency is well-placed. The content is going to drive the pace of this negotiation," the U.S. official, asking to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the Doha talks, told Reuters.

"We're asking for a big deal here; we're asking for substantial reform to actually generate new trade flows ... We're going to take the time it needs," he said.

That philosophical take on the timing of Doha, which collapsed in July after five years of debate on farm, manufacturing and service trade, is in sharp contrast to the WTO's headlong push to make a breakthrough soon.

In recent weeks, both WTO chief Pascal Lamy and European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson have lobbied hard for resuming the talks. But in Washington there is less urgency.

U.S. officials argue that the round will not drift into oblivion if a Doha deal remains elusive through 2007 or beyond, and more importantly today's multilateral trading system will not unravel, no matter what the critics warn.

Trade Representative Susan Schwab has continued to call for a renewed effort to break a deadlock on agriculture, the thorniest of Doha issues so far. But negotiators in Washington say they will not countenance a deal that doesn't give U.S. farmers new access to foreign markets.

Once other nations lower duties substantially, Washington can improve offers to cut overall trade-distorting subsidies by 53 percent, the official explained.

"There certainly is room for the negotiators to cut domestic support more if we get more market access, but hitting the balance is a tricky thing," the official said.

Next week, Schwab meets with peers from some two dozen countries at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Hopes are high the meeting could build ground, if not break ground, on Doha.

The official was guarded: "We're still putting the pieces together. Substance is really going to dictate the timing."

Since July, U.S. negotiators have been pressing ahead with bilateral meetings with trading partners, but say those tete-a-tetes haven't yet produced much new common ground.

In agriculture, negotiators have focused on a global formula for reducing tariffs, sensitive products and quotas.