The United States will try to mend relations with developing countries to revive the Doha trade talks that broke down last year, US Trade Representative Mr Robert Zoellick has told the Financial Times in an interview.
It quoted him as saying he would write to trade ministers of all the nearly 150 World Trade Organization (WTO) countries to try to agree on terms for talks by mid-2004 with the aim of a ministerial meeting in Hong Kong by year's end.
"We want to make sure people recognise that not only are we not turning away from the global trade goal and the Doha agenda, we are putting it front and centre," Mr Zoellick said.
He said he wanted to "reach out to developing countries" by addressing their concerns on agriculture, competition and investment. He added that he would support a developing country candidate to chair the WTO's general council.
The Doha talks on a new world trade deal broke down in Cancun, Mexico, in September after poorer countries demanded that the United States and European Union end all farm subsidies and drop barriers to agricultural imports.
Mr Zoellick's letter moves the United States away from its common position with the EU on their agricultural subsidies. He told the paper that final agreement would be impossible without scrapping agricultural export subsidies by a certain date, a move which could be difficult for the EU.
In return, the United States would be willing to eliminate the subsidy component of export credit programmes for food, though Mr Zoellick did not respond to EU concerns about US food aid, the paper said.
When the talks broke down in September, Mr Zoellick said poorer countries had rejected good offers. He indicated then that Washington would instead seek regional and bilateral trade pacts outside the WTO - arrangements in which it is easier for big powers to impose their will.
The Doha talks started in 2001 and were meant to bring a new global trade deal by January 2005 before they were derailed in September.