"The round is dead" was the triumphant flier circulated by a consumer group as the exhausted delegates at the WTO summit headed for Seattle airport and home. There was no agreement on a final declaration.

The summit which brought together 135 member countries broke down in acrimony after four days and nights of fruitless talks against a background of street protest; but life goes on. Seattle was not meant to be the end of a global trade round but the start.

The Director-General of the WTO, Mr Mike Moore, may try to launch the aborted round some time next year but only after a long look at what went wrong in Seattle and consulting the member countries.

So what went wrong? A lot of blame is flying around. The US is furious that the EU would not agree to the "elimination" of farm export subsidies. The EU resents the American pressure all week on this point, backed by the Cairns Group of agricultural exporting countries.

In fact, the main job of Minister for Trade, Mr Tom Kitt, in Seattle, under the watchful eye of the IFA, was to ensure that there was no weakening of the EU policy of accepting gradual "reductions" in the subsidies, which amounted to £313 million for the Republican 1998, but not their "elimination".

Some observers believe that this crunch point between the US and the EU was the main reason for the eventual breakdown in trying to agree the agenda for the next trade round. Others say that it was a combination of factors, including a rebellion by the developing countries against the strong-arm tactics of the US Special Trade Representative, Ms Charlene Barshevsky.

In previous rounds the US, the EU and Japan and a few other countries, negotiated the tariff cuts and reduction of other trade barriers. The developing countries had to accept the result which had some concessions thrown in for them.

But this tactic did not work in Seattle where the US attempt to link labour conditions in the poorer countries with trade was strongly rejected as unfair tactics. Major regional groups such as the Organisation of African Unity and the Caribbean countries threatened to walk out if they did not get better treatment.

Ms Barshefsky then invited some of them into the so-called "green room" where the main WTO members were negotiating the draft declaration to launch the new round.

It is not clear what effect the street demonstrations had on the eventual failure to agree on a declaration. The anti-WTO lobbies were brilliantly organised but even without the street protests, it was going to be extremely difficult to secure consensus from 135 countries, leading the chief EU negotiator, Mr Pascal Lamy, to comment that the whole WTO structure needs to be overhauled.

The EU suspected that President Clinton's approach and much of the protests outside were influenced by domestic politics and next year's Presidential and Congressional elections. There is a strong anti-free trade element in the Democratic Party, especially among the labour unions which believe it leads to loss of jobs at home as the multinational companies exploit cheaper labour abroad.

But environmental and consumer groups, who also marched, have legitimate concerns about further trade liberalisation. Existing WTO rules do not take the concerns of these groups sufficiently into account when disputes arise and are settled in secret at the Geneva headquarters.

President Clinton, whose instincts are to accept the challenge of globalisation, has called for more openness by the WTO and publicly supported some of the demands of the peaceful protesters. The US got only lukewarm support for more openness.

The break-down in Seattle is a big disappointment for President Clinton who had lobbied hard for the summit and who has already seen Congress refusing to ratify the nuclear test ban treaty. Now he must fear that the trade deal recently negotiated between the US and China could also be rejected on Capitol Hill.

Clearly it is time for the unwieldy WTO to take a hard look at itself after five years of existence. The vast majority of the members are "marginalised" from the real decision-making. These countries are struggling to implement what was agreed in the last Uruguay Round and are fearful of being burdened with new commitments to open up their markets in the next round.

How necessity of a next round is the now being questioned. The street protesters naturally see this as a victory but their anti-WTO campaign risks losing the baby with the bath water. Seattle itself is a booming port and a manufacturer of Boeing planes and Microsoft products.

Abolishing the WTO is not the answer.