Brussels, 31/07/2006 (Agence Europe) - Last Saturday at the end of a bilateral meeting the Brazilian foreign affairs minister Celso Amorim and the US representative for trade Susan Schwab indicated that “the USA and Brazil believe that a breakthrough in the Doha negotiations is still possible”. Mr Amorim added that, “if there is going to be any progress, it would happen in five to seven months so that we can conclude the round in reasonable time”. Ms Schwab said that it would be difficult to imagine a significant degree of impetus after this and there would be a risk of a scenario developing whereby they had two to three years to conclude an agreement or nothing at all. Mr Amorim said that finding a solution would not fall out of the sky and that “other meetings will be needed”. Rejecting any hint of isolation in the negotiations, Schwab again warned that the US would not be prepared to show any flexibility on domestic support reduction unless more concessions were made on market access. In the Financial Times on Monday, Peter Mandelson said that “a deal can still be salvaged from the ashes of Doha” if president Bush managed to convince Congress to extend the American Administration's negotiation mandate, Fast Track. Mr Mandelson said that Mr Bush is expected to choose this for two reasons, “He is a free trader…He is not ideologically committed to subsidies”. Mr Bush also knows that, “a failure of Doha would strengthen those who want to…retreat into protectionism…It would undermine the WTO system…make it much harder to anchor China, India and other growing economies into an open, fair and multilateral trade system”. Mr Mandelson then called on the US to reduce current spending on trade distorting subsidies by several billion dollars and for partners to get back to the negotiating table.