A senior U.S. trade official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity, said the delay would make it more challenging to complete the 34-nation Free Trade Agreement of the Americas by January 2005. But he insisted that the timetable could still be met if negotiating breakthroughs are achieved in coming weeks.
The U.S. official spoke to reporters in a telephone conference call from Buenos Aires, where deputy trade ministers from the United States and 11 other nations held two days of informal meetings to see if they could narrow differences in advance of a scheduled meeting of all countries in Puebla, Mexico at the end of next week.
However, because significant differences remain, the U.S. official said the March 18-19 Puebla meeting had been postponed until late April. He said another informal meeting of the smaller group of 12 countries would be held at the end of March, after negotiators have had time to consult with their governments.
Officials of Argentina's Foreign Ministry said in Buenos Aires on Wednesday that the Puebla meeting had been rescheduled for April 22-23 and that the informal talks among the smaller group would take place on March 31 and April 1 in Buenos Aires.
The U.S. official said that disputes over agriculture and several other issues needed to be resolved before the talks could go forward.
It marked the second time this year the FTAA negotiations have failed to make progress. An earlier meeting in Puebla among all 34 nations ended in deadlock on Feb. 6 after the countries were unable to resolve disputes over U.S. farm subsidies.
The FTAA talks are proceeding along a two-tier approach, in which all countries will sign on to basic trade liberalization while those who want to go further and achieve the full abolition of trade barriers envisioned by a free trade agreement will have the ability to do so.
This two-tiered approach, dubbed "FTAA-lite" by critics, represented a compromise reached at an FTAA ministerial meeting in Miami last November between two competing groups.
One group, led by Brazil, is refusing to negotiate in various trade areas where the United States wants barriers removed as long as the United States refuses to have the issue of agricultural subsidies fully covered in the FTAA talks.