The chief trade talker for the U.S. is say­ing all the right things on the eve of new global trade talks. U.S. Trade Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ron Kirk says it’s “imper­a­tive” to reach a global trade deal in light of the eco­nomic recession.

From this story in the Mail and Guardian, we see this update of the pre­lim­i­nary talks being held in New Delhi.

Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s top trade envoy said the US believed bilat­eral and mul­ti­lat­eral dis­cus­sions were needed for agree­ment in the eight-year-old World Trade Organ­i­sa­tion (WTO) Doha round, which has been dogged by failure.

He declined to reaf­firm 2010 as the dead­line for con­clud­ing the trade deal, say­ing that “sub­stance will drive this process, not set­ting a dead­line and timeline”.

“The tough­est part of a marathon is the last two miles, there is a lot of hard work to be done,” he said.

Wealthy nations, includ­ing the US, and emerg­ing nations agreed at a sum­mit in July to try to con­clude the Doha Devel­op­ment Round in 2010.

Min­is­ters agreed on Fri­day to resume high-level talks in Geneva on Sep­tem­ber 14 in a move hailed as a “break­through” by Indian Trade Min­is­ter Anand Sharma.

Kirk praised India for tak­ing the ini­tia­tive to host the meet­ing, which was aimed at set­ting out a roadmap for con­clud­ing the Doha round that seeks to lift hun­dreds of mil­lions of peo­ple out of poverty and boost world commerce.

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