Trading nations made no progress in WTO talks which had been billed as a way to revive the stalled Doha Round negotiations on harnessing freer global commerce to boost growth in poor countries.
A crucial WTO meeting wound up without a deal on Saturday, leaving members of the 149-nation body with a tough task ahead if they are to resolve bitter differences on trade concessions before a looming deadline.
"The gap is as wide as the Grand Canyon," warned Shoichi Nakagawa, the agriculture minister of Japan.
WTO chief Pascal Lamy said that even though the "panic" level was yet to come, negotiators must "face the fact that we are now in a crisis situation."
EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson was similarly gloomy after three days of fruitless talks.
"If we don't turn things around in the next two weeks, we will not make a breakthrough this summer and then we will be facing defeat," he said.
The Doha Round has swung back and forth from near-collapse to revival since it was launched in the Qatari capital in 2001.
The round was originally meant to wrap up in 2004, but the deadline was pushed back to this December and there is mounting pressure to stick to that revised goal.
The specific aim of the latest gathering was a deal on the mathematics for cutting farm subsidies and import duties on agricultural and manufactured goods, a crucial step towards a final trade treaty.
After failing to bridge the gaps, negotiators on Saturday mandated Lamy to act as a "catalyst" ahead of further talks at the end of this month.
However, they stopped short of asking him to take the controversial step of drafting a deal himself.
Lamy said he would "crack heads together, consult and confess, so we can get to the numbers."
Australian Trade Minister Mark Vaile appeared less pessimistic than his counterparts.
"We keep finding creative ways of keeping the process moving. You think that you run into a dead end and then you find a new way forward," he said.
However, Vaile cautioned: "The drop-dead date is the end of July."
The impasse in Geneva once again exposed the deep divisions between rich and poor countries, as well as among the wealthy, which have dogged the Doha Round.
"There is no need to pretend that this has not been a failure," said Indian Minister of Commerce Kamal Nath.
"We came to the conclusion that there is just not any negotiating space, because there is really a difference of perception," he said.
Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said developing countries were "prepared to negotiate" but also threw down the gauntlet.
"The burden of leadership in this particular case has to be on those who have more to give, and those are of course the richer countries," he said.
In one sign of a potential thaw during the Geneva meeting, Mandelson said Brussels was ready to go beyond its existing offer of a 46 percent cut in agricultural tariffs by moving closer to the 54 percent cut proposed by the G20, a developing country bloc led by Brazil and India.
"Whilst the European Union and G20 do not have identical positions, we are now much closer together than we were and convergence is within reach. But it's essential, for an agreement to be struck, for the main players to come together," Mandelson said.
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