The US administration's top trade official said on Tuesday that continued stalling by the European Union and Japan in the Doha Round global trade negotiations would be likely to result in countries missing a critical March 2003 deadline for agreement on how to cut agricultural subsidies, the Financial Times reports.

In his first formal press conference since the administration won fast-track trade negotiating authority from Congress in August, Robert Zoellick, the US trade representative, said he was considering new negotiating tactics to try to break the impasse on agriculture.

Zoellick, who will meet Pascal Lamy, the EU trade commissioner, in New York next week said he was prepared to push ahead in other areas of concern to the EU such as dispute settlement, industrial tariffs and new rules on investment and competition policy as part of a larger package that included "substantial movement" on agriculture by the EU and Japan.