Did WTO's failed Doha round try to do too much?

By Laura MacInnis

GENEVA (Reuters) - The collapse of World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks has raised divisions of opinion about whether the Doha round push was simply trying to tackle too much at once.

Some negotiators suggested a series of smaller accords may be salvaged from the wreckage of Doha, which was designed to pry open global markets for agricultural and manufactured goods as well as cross-border services.

But others insisted that the all-in-one package approach was essential to satisfy everybody's needs.

"I suspect that there has never in history been an international negotiation as complex as this one," U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab told a news conference on Wednesday, the day after the talks broke down in Geneva.

She said certain areas of the wide-ranging Doha talks seemed ripe for agreement, even though the WTO's 153 members have failed to reach consensus on the overall package which would slash barriers to trade in food, cars, textiles, and phones.

"Why should it have to come together at exactly the same time?," Schwab asked.

Side deals to boost trade in environmental goods, to revamp export competition rules and to give poor countries duty-free and quota-free advantages could be spun from the nearly seven-year-old Doha drive, the top U.S. negotiator said.

"There are ways of moving forward, certainly, with pieces of this. If we are going to say 'nothing is done until everything is done' then it's going to take longer," she said.