(Adds details from report; byline) By Doug Palmer WASHINGTON, March 2 (Reuters) - The Obama administration said on Monday there would be no agreement in long-running world trade talks aimed at cutting rich country farm subsidies and promoting global development until other countries make better offers to open their markets to U.S. goods. The warning came in the first U.S. annual trade agenda report prepared since President Barack Obama took office. The report reflected a shift in U.S. trade policy toward a greater emphasis on protecting workers' rights and the environment, while also setting a high bar for a successful conclusion of the Doha round of world trade talks. "It will be necessary to correct the imbalance in the current (Doha) negotiations in which the value of what the United States would be expected to give is well-known and easily calculable, whereas the broad flexibilities available to others leaves unclear the value of new opportunities for our workers, farmers, ranchers and businesses," the report said. U.S. manufacturing, services and farm groups are deeply unhappy with other countries' offers in the seven-year-old Doha trade talks and told Obama last week they did not believe negotiations could simply pick up where they left off in 2008. The trade agenda report is more evidence there is unlikely to be a quick conclusion to the round in 2009, even though Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has said countries came "within a millimeter of reaching a deal" last year and urged Obama to make finishing the talks a priority. Obama kept his distance during last year's election campaign from President George W. Bush's efforts to finish the Doha round before leaving office. He also criticized the North American Free Trade Agreement and opposed free trade deals that Bush negotiated with Colombia and South Korea. NO RUSH ON NEW FAST TRACK AUTHORITY Even so, the new report notes the importance of trade to the U.S. economy and says Obama will use "all available tools" to expand exports. That could include seeking fast-track authority to negotiate new free trade agreements. But the White House will only take that step after "extensive consultations with Congress," the report said. Fast track allows the White House to negotiate trade agreements that it can submit to Congress for a straight up-or-down vote without amendments. Bush was unable to win renewal of the authority after it expired in mid-July 2007, compounding the difficulty he faced in persuading other countries to agree to a Doha round deal. The Obama administration hopes to move "relatively quickly" to win approval of a free trade agreement with Panama and plans to "establish benchmarks for progress on the Colombian and South Korean FTAs," the report said, without providing any additional detail on that point. Last year, Obama said Colombia needed to do much more to reduce violence against trade unionists. He also called for the South Korean agreement to be renegotiated to change provisions he said were bad for U.S. automakers and other manufacturers. The trade office wants to work with Canada and Mexico "to identify ways in which NAFTA could be improved without having an adverse on trade," USTR said. Obama has promised to "fix" NAFTA by adding enforceable labor and environmental provisions into core text of the agreement. Currently, those areas are covered by side agreements to the core text. "We need to ensure that expanded trade is not at the expense of workers' welfare and that competitiveness is not based on the exploitation of workers. Building on the provisions concerning labor in some of our FTAs is a way forward in this regard," the report said. U.S. trade policy also should play an important role in promoting a cleaner environment, especially in the context of addressing global climate change and promoting more sustainable natural resources and energy supplies, the report said. (Reporting by Doug Palmer; Editing by John O'Callaghan)
A man eats noodle at a restaurant in Shanghai March 2, 2009. China said on Monday food security remains "grim", despite campaigns launched after several health scares, the most recent last ...
