EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson is meeting US president George Bush today to discuss resurrecting last year's failed trade negotiations on agricultural subsidies.
Mr Mandelson will meet with the president and his trade representative, Susan Schwab, in an attempt to secure a broad agreement for change in order to aid the developing world's efforts to compete in the global economy.
His efforts follow the collapse last July of the Doha round of trade talks, an ongoing effort to negotiate subsidies imposed by the US to help its farmers over those of developing nations.
The former Labour minister blamed the US at the time for the talks' failure, telling the BBC one day after their abandonment that "for the sake of a few billion dollars worth of American farm subsidies, we have let fall from our grasp what was a very important trade deal".
Since then he has fought to move the US' firm position, which has traditionally struggled to escape the substantial power of the American farming lobby.
"We have now entered a narrow window of opportunity lasting until Easter during which success for the world trade talks is possible," Mr Mandelson said on Saturday.
"The quiet, constructive bilateral contacts of the last few months have made clear to us all the possible outline of a final deal. We now need the added momentum of political leadership from the highest level. Europe and the US have a shared responsibility to make this happen."
Mr Mandelson is hoping to secure a basic agreement of political will before April so that talks can resume quickly; failure could mean a delay of several years before all the parties are prepared to return to the negotiating table.
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