TOKYO, May 23: Brazil will decide within the coming weeks whether to take action at the World Trade Organization over Washington’s new farm bill, Foreign Minister Celso Lafer said here on Thursday.

We plan to work it out in the following weeks, Lafer told AFP at the start of a five-day visit to Japan.

We are talking to the Cairns group (of 15 major agricultural exporters),” the foreign minister added.

But he declined to confirm Wednesday’s statement by Argentine Foreign Minister Carlos Ruckauf that Argentina and Brazil would file a joint complaint at the WTO over US farm subsidies.

The farm bill, signed into law by President George W. Bush last week, provides for a massive hike in subsidies to American farmers totalling $181.5 billion over 10 years.

The bill has implications for global agricultural trade, and is potentially damaging to principal agricultural exporters in the Cairns group who are opposed to subsidies.

We have many problems with the farm bill, Lafer said. According to our first evaluation, it will lead to an increase in the level of internal support which will have an impact on prices, which will affect Brazilian exports.

The minister likened the US move to protectionist tariffs announced in March by Bush on certain steel imports.

We are also concerned with the impact that the farm bill will have in the climate of negotiations, be it at the WTO (or other organizations) he said.

Agriculture was one of the most sensitive issues at a WTO meeting in Doha, Qatar last November, when member nations agreed to launch a fresh round of multilateral trade talks.

The announcement of the farm bill’s passage into law triggered an outcry around the world and accusations that Washington was reneging on its commitments in Doha.

Lafer admitted that the Brazilian government was under intense pressure to act against the United States in the run-up to presidential elections.

But he stressed that the issue was of much greater technical complexity than earlier cases brought before the WTO by Brazil. If you are to win this case, you have to build it very carefully, Lafer said, explaining Brazil’s caution.

There are many sectors in Brazil wich are truly interested in fostering this case, but cases at the WTO are not made by private interests but are the result of a public evaluation by the government.

It is my responsibility to make sure that it is done as carefully and as judiciously as possible, he said.—AFP