WASHINGTON, June 24: A majority of U.S. senators urged President George W. Bush's administration on Friday not to back down from a US proposal on farm trade at a key world trade meeting in Geneva next week.

“An unbalanced proposal that asks US agriculture and rural communities to give more while getting less in market access is unacceptable,” North Dakota Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad wrote in a letter to Bush which was signed by 57 senators.

The United States is coming under pressure from the European Union and the G20 group of developing countries to break a stalemate in World Trade Organisation negotiations for a new world trade pact. They want it to offer deeper cuts to its trade distorting farm subsidies than it already has and scale back demands for other countries to slash duties on imported farm goods.

“We urge you to direct your negotiators to reject any such proposal and instead insist on an ambitious, balanced result that will level the playing field for US agriculture, open foreign markets to US agricultural exports and increase net income prospects for US farmers and ranchers,” the senators wrote to Bush.

Ministers from some 50 countries, around one-third of the WTO membership, will meet in Geneva from June 29 to try to agree on a blueprint for cutting subsidies and tariffs in agriculture and manufacturing.

The United States offered last October to cut its most trade-distorting farm subsidies by 60 per cent if other countries cut their farm tariffs by up to 95 percent. The European Union, its mandate squeezed by countries like France that say their farm supports have already been sufficiently reformed, says Washington's proposal is unrealistic.

Without a deal, many believe the WTO could run out of time to complete the Doha round, which was launched in 2001 with the aim of boosting the world economy and lifting millions out of poverty by dismantling trade barriers.

The senators who signed Conrad's letter included Republican heavyweights Charles Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee which oversees international trade, and Saxby Chambliss, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic minority leader of the Senate, also signed the letter.

“The Senate is sending a clear message to negotiators in Geneva that a trade agreement must be ambitious and fair to US.— Reuters