US, South Korea trade talks miss deadline

SEOUL, Apr 2 (Reuters) Exhausted U.S. and South Korean negotiators, with two deadlines already gone, on Monday poured over details of a deal that could be the biggest U.S. trade pact in 15 years.

The United States and Asia's third largest economy have been negotiating a deal for the past nine months but final agreement appears to largely hinge on whether they can offer enough concessions to each other on farm goods and autos.

The second deadline slipped by at 1 a.m. in Seoul (1600 GMT on Sunday) and time has almost run out if they are to agree a deal while the White House can still use fast-track trade legislation, that expires on June 30, to negotiate trade pacts Congress may approve or reject but not alter.

Without it, negotiations could drag on for years.

''The talks are still going on at the minster's level,'' South Korea's top farm negotiator Min Dong-seok told reporters.

''Talks are over the substance, and both sides are working on sensitive issues,'' he said but declined to go into detail.

A U.S. trade official, asking to remain anonymous, said several hours after the latest deadline that a deal had been put on the table which the two sides were now considering.

One protester against the proposed free-trade agreement set fire to himself near the central Seoul hotel which has been the venue for the final round of talks over the past week.

The 56-year-old taxi driver was taken to hospital where he was in a critical condition.

South Korean officials have said the most contentious issues were agriculture, including beef and oranges, and autos.

Both sides want the other to lower and other barriers to auto imports. The U.S. is demanding South Korea -- whose consumers pay among the world's highest prices for their food -- open its tightly protected farm market American beef imports.

Beef is not strictly part of the negotiations but has become closely linked. South Korea used to be a major market for U.S. beef until Seoul banned imports in 2002 due a U.S. mad cow disease outbreak. South Korea said in September it would resume imports provided beef parts it deemed risky, such as bones, were not included.

Min said Seoul had rejected a U.S. demand to put in writing when it will fully clear U.S. beef quarantine issues.

Some estimates say an agreement could add billion to the already more than billion of two-way trade each year.

EARLIER ON VERGE OF DEAL Negotiators had seemed on the verge of signing a deal after Presidents George W. Bush and Roh Moo-hyun agreed last week to instruct their negotiators to be as flexible as possible.

Months of talks have been overshadowed by large and sometimes violent protests in South Korea, mostly over fears that its heavily subsidised farmers could not survive a flood of cheaper U.S. farm products.

South Korean farmers say opening their market would cost them billions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs.

On automobiles, officials say Washington's demands to change South Korea's tax structure to remove discrimination against American cars would have a much wider impact and could cost the government billions of dollars in lost revenue.

The United States also wants greater access to South Korea's lucrative financial services, including insurance.

Seoul is pressing Washington to change anti-dumping laws it says are unfairly applied to its products. It also wants lower U.S. tariffs on its auto exports there.

REUTERS SBA BST0631