GENEVA, July 8: EU trade chief Peter Mandelson had offered deal to the United States to boost talks on liberalizing global commerce, with Brussels ready to lower tariffs on agricultural produce if Washington cut its aid to American farmers, diplomats said here on Friday.

Mandelson made the offer during a meeting behind closed doors in London on Thursday with his US counterpart Rob Portman, as well as Indian trade chief Kamal Nath and Brazil’s foreign minister Celso Amorim, said a diplomat at the Geneva headquarters of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Mandelson called the meeting ahead of a conference of around 30 leading WTO members next week in Dalian, China, which would attempt to spur sluggish negotiations on an international trade treaty.

“Mr Mandelson said he was ready to make a move on market access if there is specific language committing the United States to make substantial efforts on counter-cyclical payments and on cotton,” the diplomat said, referring to programmes that support US farmers.

Portman did not react to the offer, but Amorim said it could generate the trade off needed to energise negotiations, diplomats said.

The WTO’s 148 members are struggling to complete the Doha Round of trade talks they launched in the Qatari capital in 2001.

They are attempting to break down more tariffs and other barriers to commerce, and to try to use trade to give developing countries a boost.

The aim is to end the negotiations in time for a summit in Hong Kong in December.

The talks have stumbled repeatedly, amid splits between rich and poor countries over the degree of compromise required in areas such as commerce in services, industrial goods and farm produce.

But there have also been spats among rich members, including the EU and US, with each side saying the other must be more flexible.

The farm trade represents only 13 per cent of world commerce in goods, but is nonetheless seen as a key to a successful round.

Governments in poor countries and anti-poverty campaigners maintain that farm subsidies allow farmers in rich countries to sell their produce at artificially low prices on the world market, preventing the poor from competing fairly.

Import duties, meanwhile, make it tougher for farmers from poor countries to get their goods to consumers in rich nations.

—AFP