Ministers from 135 members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) are leaving Seattle empty-handed as the organization's third ministerial meeting closed late Friday after four-days of intense negotiations amid violent protests.

The expected Seattle Round, or the Millennium Round, had not been launched. The ministers have now delegated their representatives to resume negotiations early next year in Geneva with the aim of initiating the new round of global trade talks.

The failure in Seattle, analysts say, had resulted from a complicated combination of US domestic politics, complexity of difficult and important trade issues, wide gaps among the members, and the decision-making mechanism of the WTO based on consensus.

Diplomats, complaining that the four-day meeting had been messy, chaotic and the worst organized, believe that the Clinton administration lacks a political will to make concessions in areas where US interests are most concerned, as the presidential election is nearing.

In a statement issued after the meeting, President Bill Clinton seemed not so disappointed for the failure. "We made progress at the Seattle WTO trade meetings although significant differences remain," he said.

In order to protect the two vital constituencies for Vice President Al Gore, a Democratic presidential candidate, the White House had been urging WTO members to include labor and environmental issues on the agenda of the next round of trade talks.

Indeed, Clinton made shrewd calculation. Behind the high-minded statements, the administration is hoping to seize an astounding moment of American power to satisfy powerful domestic constituencies -- labor unions and environment protection groups.

As about 30,000 protesters from labor unions and environment protection groups across the country blocked ministers from attending the conference, Clinton expressed his sympathy for them and support for their demands.

Protesters felt encouraged and violence followed in downtown. Tear gas was fired; troops were called in; the city was placed under curfew; and the meeting was disrupted. Some diplomats called the meeting the "Seattle Battlefield Round."

The opening session had to be canceled. The time left for the negotiators to complete their contentious job had been cut short. Chances for success was reduced.

In an interview with a local newspaper, Clinton said in Seattle that he ultimately favored sanctions against countries with lax labor standards. This further created a furor among delegates from developing countries and intensified their opposition to the inclusion of the labor issue in the agenda.

The developing countries fear that rich countries would use labor issues as pretexts to deny the access of developing countries' products to their markets. They insist that the labor issue should be managed by the International Labor Organization (ILO).

Apart from controversies between the developing and developed members, big gaps between developed members also appeared to be unbridgeable during the negotiations.

It is widely believed that agriculture, a politically-sensitive issue, was perhaps the biggest problem standing in the way of an agreement. Disputes between the US and the European Union (EU) almost resulted in a failure of the Uruguay Round.

"Agriculture tends to raise more blood pressure at home than any other sector of the economy," said Dan Glickman, the US Agriculture Secretary.

In Seattle, the US, together with Australia and other Cairns Group countries, pressured the EU to agree to eliminate all subsidies on farm products, while the EU, supported by Japan, agreed only to talk about substantial reductions in the subsidies.

In other areas, differences have remained between the rich and the poor, and between the rich themselves. Many countries bar foreign services firms while the US wanted negotiations to open up a long list of services like banking, education, insurance, telecommunications and air transport.

The US also insists on more transparency in the WTO, but negotiators could not agree on opening up the organization's controversial dispute resolution process or allowing formal input into that process from non-governmental organization.

With the significant differences and a policy-making system based on consensus, it's impossible for the WTO ministers to make a decision to launch the new round and the prepared declaration draft was aborted in the end.

Over the past 50 years, the success of eight rounds of global trade talks under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the WTO's predecessor, has accelerated the growth of world trade and economy. The world's total trade and output last year was 15 times and six times respectively the level of 1950.

A new round will add trillions of US dollars to the world economy and both the developed and the developing countries will benefit from it. Everyone needs it. Despite the setback in Seattle, experts say it will be launched when major WTO members have the political will to make concessions. (Xinhua)