Streets of Seattle will be lined with protesters

President Clinton is resigned to a rough week in Seattle. "Every group in the world with an axe to grind is going to Seattle to demonstrate. I'll have more demonstrators against me than I've had in the whole seven years I've been President," Mr Clinton told workers at the Harley-Davidson factory in York, Pennsylvania, recently.

Seattle is bracing itself for a week of street demonstrations from environmental groups, trade unions and even anarchists, while ministers behind closed doors try to hammer out an agenda for the next round of world trade negotiations. About 7,000 heads of government, ministers, officials and several thousand media representatives are expected but environmental and anti-trade groups are boasting they will be joined by tens of thousands of protesters in the streets.

The local police could have a huge job on its hands. Some of the wilder groups have hinted that anthrax could be let loose.

This will be the first big test of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) which emerged from the last trade round called the Uruguay Round and was given the job of organising the next one.

It will be launched in Seattle next week when the 134 member-countries come together to try and agree on the agenda for the negotiations which will continue over three years, mainly in Geneva where the WTO has its headquarters. About 30 other countries not yet members of the WTO including China and Russia will attend as observers and be hoping to become full members before the trade round ends early in the next century.

As the host country, the US is anxious to get the negotiations off to a successful start but is just as concerned to defend its own interests which will see it at odds with the European Union in sensitive sectors such as agricultural subsidies. The US will take an "aggressive" approach and push for the elimination of farm export subsidies.

The Irish Farmers' Association has warned the Government that Ireland is the EU member which is most dependent on these subsidies and not to give in to pressure from the US and other exporting countries like Australia and New Zealand. The Government will be represented by Minister of State and the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment, Mr Tom Kitt, but the EU Commission has the main responsibility for trade negotiations.

The haggling over subsidies and tariff reductions will be for later in the negotiations which the Europeans would like to call the Millennium Round. This smacks too much of religious cults to the nervous Americans who will hope that it will be called the Seattle Round.

The main preoccupation now is to ensure that next week's talks will produce agreement on the agenda or the "mandate" for the trade round.

There is already a "built-in agenda" inherited from the Uruguay Round which laid down that the next one would address obstacles to trade in agriculture and further liberalisation of services such as telecommunications and finance. But richer countries want to add to this "core agenda".

The Lesser Developed Countries (LDCs) want to focus on a narrow agenda as they have problems trying to implement what has already been agreed in earlier rounds. The EU and Japan argue for a broad agenda which would add investment, the environment, technical barriers to trade and government procurement. The US also wants a broad agenda including electronic commerce but is being cautious lest it stir up further resistance to freer trade from labour unions and environmentalists in an election year.

Social issues will be especially sensitive. The big US labour unions, who are backing Vice-President Al Gore in next year's election, are insisting that any trade concessions be matched with more protection for workers. The powerful president of the AFL-CIO, Mr John Sweeney, has called on Mr Clinton to abandon the trade talks unless the participants agree to allow sanctions against countries that violate basic standards such as the ban on child labour.

The LDCs are strongly opposed to dragging social issues into trade talks arguing that the richer countries could use them to restrict imports from poorer countries when it suited them. The US has already proposed a working group in the WTO to study trade and labour and wants the International Labour Organisation to become involved for the first time in trade matters.

The trade partners of the US will want to know if Congress will grant President Clinton or his successor "fast track authority" to negotiate a future agreement. This means that Congress will only be able to accept or reject whatever the US agrees in the negotiations and not change it through amendments.

It is unlikely that Mr Clinton will seek this authority from Congress in an election year but US officials express confidence that his successor will get it in time to conclude the negotiations in three years' time.

The US also agrees with critics who accuse the WTO of secrecy and wants to make it more receptive to public opinion. President Clinton has called the trade talks "a secret priesthood for experts". He has said: "I want everybody to get this all out of their system and say their piece. And I want us to have a huge debate about this."

He may get more than he bargained for in the streets of Seattle where the police are hoping for heavier rain than usual in this wet city to dampen down the protesters.