Associated Press Antiglobalization protesters celebrated the collapse of world trade discussions on Sunday in Cancún, Mexico.   ARTICLE TOOLS E-Mail This Article Printer-Friendly Format Most E-Mailed Articles Reprints & Permissions Single-Page Format     TIMES NEWS TRACKER     Topics Alerts International Trade and World Market   Third World and Developing Countries   World Trade Organization   Agriculture

By ELIZABETH BECKER

ANCÚN, Mexico, Sept. 14 — World trade talks intended to help the developing nations unexpectedly collapsed today when delegates from Africa, the Caribbean and Asia walked out, accusing wealthy nations of failing to offer sufficient compromises on agriculture and other issues.

While not as disastrous as the breakdown of talks in Seattle four years ago, the failure to reach an accord today was widely regarded as a huge setback for the World Trade Organization, the 146-nation group that was presiding over the talks here. The group, based in Geneva, will now almost certainly fail to make its self-imposed deadline of January 2005 for reaching a new agreement that dismantles global trade barriers.

The failure today also means the faltering global economy will not receive a jump-start by the expansion of markets, which some economists contend would inject hundreds of billions of dollars into international commercial activity.

"We all could have gained here and now we have all lost," said Pascal Lamy, the European Union's trade negotiator, commenting on the collapse of the talks.

Robert B. Zoellick, the United States trade representative, sounded less pessimistic but still spoke with some frustration. "The harsh rhetoric of the `won't do' overwhelmed the concerted efforts of the `can do,' " he said.

Wealthy nations had hoped an agreement at the five-day talks in this resort city would help fend off a new wave of protectionism, especially in the United States, where manufacturing jobs have been disappearing by the tens of thousands. Already, questions about the benefits of unfettered world trade have infected the presidential campaign.

Supachai Panitchpakdi, the director general of the W.T.O., tried to be optimistic tonight, saying, "We must return to the task before us with renewed vigor," to complete this round of trade negotiations, which will continue at a low level at the group's Geneva headquarters.

"If we fail, the losers will be the poor and weaker nations," he said.

The immediate cause of the breakdown was proposed new trade rules for investment and government procurement, which had been promoted by the European Union but opposed by the poorer nations. But agriculture was the pivotal issue. Developing nations had established themselves as a potent force in talks here this week, challenging the earlier supremacy of the United States and Europe in trade talks.

Banding together in what was known as the Group of 21, the developing nations thought they had made their case that the $300 billion in subsidies paid every year to the world's wealthiest farmers undermined the livelihoods of millions of poor farmers around the world. But they said the proposals made by the United States and Europe to redress what the developing nations regard as a major injustice fell far short of their expectations.

Richard L. Bernal, a delegate from Jamaica, said a group of African, Caribbean, Asian and Latin countries felt they had little choice but to quit the talks. The United States and Europe, he said, were not generous enough on reducing their agriculture subsidies, on helping poor African countries dependent on cotton, or on understanding their difficulties in taking on such complex trade responsibilities as investment.

"There is nothing for us small countries in this proposal," he said. "We don't want any of this."

Yet those nations said tonight that they blamed no one for the failure and vowed to work for a trade agreement on agriculture now that the talks move back to Geneva. Celso Amorim, the Brazilian minister of foreign affairs and a spokesman for the group, said those nations had demonstrated that they were a new force in the trading organization.

"This is the real start in negotiations over agriculture," he said. "Whatever the process, the pieces will be picked up again."

Mr. Zoellick said he would move ahead on free-trade agreements with individual nations or regions, noting he had a long list of countries that wanted to negotiate with the United States. Meanwhile, he said, he would wait for things to "calm down" at the World Trade Organization.

"I hope we can help those countries come around," he said, without identifying them.

Mr. Zoellick said he believed that the talks were unlikely to reach a conclusion by their deadline. The message he heard from many members, he said, was "not now."