US and Brazil see Doha deal in 2010

       The United States, the European Union and Brazil said on Thursday the Doha round of world trade talks could be concluded in 2010 and help bolster global trade hit by the financial crisis.
       The US Trade Representative and Brazil's foreign minister both said a deal to liberalise world trade was achievable after talks in Brasilia. EU leaders pledged to press the G20 next week to complete the Doha round, started in 2001, by the end of 2010.
       Concerns had risen that a major tyre trade dispute between Washington and Beijing combined with a busy US domestic agenda could overshadow efforts to set a 2010 deadline at the summit of Group of 20 industrialised and developing nations in Pittsburgh.
       On Tuesday, negotiators resumed efforts in Geneva to conclude the talks,which stalled last year.
       Diplomats involved in the negotiations said the United States was not yet fully engaged in the talks and emerging powers China, India and Brazil were concentrating more on bilateral and regional pacts.
       But US Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said they believed negotiators could reach a deal next year.
       Kirk said there was a growing political will to reach a global accord and shot down suggestions that with President Barack Obama dealing with health-care reform, climate change and Afghanistan the White House might be too busy to strike a deal.
       "As for the domestic political environment in the United States, I frankly think that is a red herring," Kirk told reporters after meeting Amorim."I don't think the domestic political environment in the United States is being more or less of a challenge than in any other country."
       Amorim, who had played a key role in the Doha round until talks collapsed in mid-2008, agreed there was renewed momentum.
       "The political will of the principle actors is present," the foreign minister said."There is will by the delegations to engage."
       Resistance from major economies including the United States, EU, China,India and Brazil to exposing their most sensitive markets - or politically weighty farmers - to more competition has caused the talks to sputter and stall.
       At a pre-G20 meeting in Brussels, EU leaders, concerned at the pace of talks since the 2010 deadline was set at a July meeting of the Group of Eight (G8) industrialised nations, vowed to push the G20 to sign up to a timetable for concluding a deal.
       "The G20 should ... continue to press for progress in trade liberalisation, including with regard to a global, ambitious and balanced conclusion of the Doha negotiations in 2010, as agreed at (the)G8 summit," said a communique by the EU's 27 leaders."In this respect, a realistic and ambitious road map should be agreed."
       EU leaders also agreed to press the G20 to reiterate its promise to avoid protectionist measures amid concerns of a risk of so-called tit-for-tat trade moves by countries to protect their domestic industries similar to the US tyre decision.
       Valentine Rugwabiza, a WTO deputy director-general, said such measures ran the risk of spilling over and slowing down economic recovery.
       Rugwabiza said "safeguard" measures of the type applied by Washington were not protectionist but were still damaging to free trade.
       "People reverting increasingly to those remedies is a source of concern to us," she said in a Reuters Television interview.
       "They all result in restricting trade and there is a serious risk of spillover and tit-for-tat reaction which will undoubtedly slow down any recovery."