RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 23: Brazil’s future government hopes to double trade with the United States, but it will negotiate a trade deal with Washington only as part of an ailing Mercosur bloc of South American states.

A close economic advisor to Brazil’s President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Friday the number one task in foreign trade was to “refound and strengthen” the world’s third-biggest trade bloc that apart from Latin America’s biggest country comprises Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.

But we need to move on and boost bilateral trade with the United States ... Our initiative will be in the Mercosur environment, we have a commitment there, Aloizio Mercadante told the Latin American Business Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

The trade bloc has been living through tough times due to economic turmoil in its four member-countries.

Returning to Brazil’s bilateral trade with the United States, Mercadante — a Senator-elect who is in charge of international affairs in Lula’s leftist Workers’ Party — said it could double in four years from $30 billion annually now.

What we sell to the United States now in a year is what Canada exports in 10 days, Mercadante said.

Earlier, he made clear the negotiations between Mercosur and Washington should be apart from the US-proposed talks to set up the Free Trade Area for the Americas (FTAA) by 2005.

Mercadante reiterated the stance expressed by many Brazilian officials that poorer Latin American countries, and especially Brazil, should not dance to the North American tune in FTAA negotiations and protect their own trade interests.

We will carry on with FTAA talks in a tough way, he said. For now, the rules are dictated by rich countries. We are obliged to play baseball while we know how to play soccer. But we will learn the way.

On Thursday, Agriculture Minister Marcus Pratini de Moraes said the incoming government should take forward the Brazilian demand for a cut in US farm subsidies as it negotiates the FTAA, which he said was not feasible without a fair agreement on agriculture.

Brazil, the world’s No. 1 coffee and sugar producer, has complained that subsidies make its products less competitive.

The FTAA, which should unite 34 countries in a free trade zone by 2005, is the centerpiece of US President George W. Bush’s foreign trade policy. But Brazil has shown only lukewarm support for the idea, arguing that its products have to remain competitive under the treaty.

At the same event, US Deputy Treasury Secretary Kenneth Dam tried to boost confidence in the FTAA and the willingness of the United States to find an acceptable treaty for all.

We do not have in mind a one-way street. Everything will be on the table, and we mean it, Dam said. However, he transferred the blame for high export subsidies on other world players, making clear Washington could not cut them now.

We proposed that all export subsidies be eliminated, all we need is for Europe to agree to that, he said, explaining that subsidies in the European Union of an annual $60 billion were three times as high as in the United States.—Reuters