U.S. blames Brazil, India for failure of G4 talks

By Missy Ryan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. officials said India and Brazil were to blame for the breakdown on Thursday of trade talks that some were billing as a final chance to spur the Doha round toward completion.

"While the U.S. and EU were prepared to make significant contributions, there was a lack of flexibility, indeed a rigidity, when it came to advanced developing countries who were present," U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab told reporters by phone just hours after the senior-level talks in Germany ended in acrimony.

"We had two countries, India and Brazil, which I don't think really chose to negotiate," added Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns.

The meeting in Potsdam of Brazil, India, the United States and the European Union, known as the G4, was billed as a chance to hammer out an agreement on trade in agricultural and manufactured goods and services that could be used a springboard for a new world trade deal this year.

While New Delhi's negotiator, Kamal Nath, said an "attitude change" was needed to move the round forward, Johanns said Brazil and India were asking for impossible concessions.

"They picked numbers that were so out of the realm of possibility in realm of manufacturing market access ... They adopted that attitude from the beginning and it cast a chill over the entire week," Johanns said.

"To have the goal posts moved like that ... really marked the end of the day," Schwab said.

Their comments echoed from the White House, where a spokesman said President George W. Bush was disappointed that countries like Brazil and India were blocking the hopes of smaller, poor countries.