Brussels, 19/01/2009 (Agence Europe) - The next meeting of the G20 economic powers, scheduled to take place in London on 2 April is expected to give fresh impetus to the multilateral negotiations of the Doha Round, which has been deadlocked since the breakdown of the ministerial meeting in July 2008 (see EUROPE 9714). In the meantime, pressure remains on the United States, as witnessed by the new call to President elect Barack Obama from UK Secretary of State for Business Peter Mandelson. “U.S. leadership will be a deciding factor in a deal in 2009. … Deadlock after deadlock have eroded trust between some of the key negotiators, especially the U.S. and India. Fresh U.S. leadership means a chance to re-engage with India after its own general elections in the spring and build the necessary trust and compromise on safeguards for farm trade that will unblock the negotiations. The U.S. will also be in a strong position to re-energise negotiations on industrial goods trade in a way that meets the needs of U.S. manufacturers while keeping big players like China, Brazil and India at the table,” former Trade Commissioner Mandelson writes in the Wall Street Journal of 13 January. “Europe and the U.S. cannot expect to be paid dollar-for-dollar in concessions to remove their trade-distorting farm subsidies. But they can legitimately require China, India, Brazil and the other fast-developing economies to place new ceilings on their tariffs and to reduce them in a fair and flexible way,” he argued. (E.H./transl.rt)