No deal soon, U.S. trade negotiator says

GENEVA, Switzerland, Jan. 30 (UPI) -- The chief U.S. trade negotiator said in Geneva Tuesday she did not expect a breakthrough on lowering trade barriers any time soon.

"Just as the last several months have been months of very intensive, quiet consultations and discussions, I suspect the next several months will be characterized by much of the same," Susan Schwab told reporters at the World Trade Organization.

"Clearly we have a lot of work to do to find a landing zone where we have convergence because we haven't identified that," she said.

She did say she felt some trade negotiators emerged from last week's World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, "with a new sense of optimism and a sense of momentum that had been sorely lacking since July."

Schwab did not put forward any proposals on stumbling-block issues, such as agriculture, that have deadlocked the current trade round, launched more than five years ago in Doha, Qatar.

Talks collapsed in July, largely over agricultural subsidies. The European Union does not believe Washington's proposal to cut farm subsidies goes far enough. Washington wants the EU to make deeper cuts in farm import tariffs.