July 31 (Bloomberg) -- U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair said he and U.S. President George W. Bush want to see global trade negotiations restarted, a week after talks among key World Trade Organization governments collapsed.

Hopes of a deal ended July 24 amid clashes over farm subsidies, undermining efforts to reach a global market-opening agreement. The European Union, India and Japan blamed the U.S. for the deadlock, which prompted WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy to shelve the five-year-old talks to dismantle market barriers and lift millions out of poverty.

``I have not given up on the WTO trade round,'' Blair told executives at an event hosted by News Corp., according to a remarks released by his office. After talks with Bush on July 28, ``we both agreed we needed to make one final effort to re- energize the negotiation and I hope we can do so within the next few weeks.''

The breakdown jeopardizes the WTO's aim to seal an accord this year to lower trading costs on everything from grain and machinery to customs paperwork. Agriculture subsidies and tariffs have been the main obstacles to reaching a WTO deal.

The original ambition of the Doha Round was to produce an agreement by the end of 2004 worth as much as $800 billion, according to the World Bank, about equal to the size of South Korea's economy. As the round has dragged on, the bank has scaled back its prediction of a trade accord's value to as little as $96 billion, the size of Romania's economy.

Murdoch

Blair made the speech behind closed doors to executives of News Corp., the media group controlled by Rupert Murdoch, and others in San Francisco. News Corp. publishes the Times and the Sun, Britain's biggest-selling daily newspaper, and Murdoch chairs British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc, a pay-television broadcaster.

Murdoch, 75, who has helped Blair win three elections since 1997, recently suggested he'd consider supporting opposition Conservative Party leader David Cameron in the next vote. Blair, 53, has said he wants to step down and hand over to Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown before the election, which is due no later than mid-2010.

Earlier in the day, the Prime Minister met executives from some of Silicon Valley's leading companies, including John Chambers, chief executive of Cisco Systems Inc., Jonathan Schwartz, president of Sun Microsystems Inc. and Steve Jobs, chief executive of Apple Computer Inc.

Risks

Blair is on a four-day visit to California to learn lessons that can be applied to the British economy. Company executives told Blair that much of the success of their high-tech businesses was due to the links between universities and entrepreneurs an a culture of risk taking.

``In Silicon Valley, if you have taken a risk and fail you in fact become more interesting and valuable because you know something,'' said Sun's Schwartz, after meeting Blair.

Blair is due to meet leaders from California's biotechnology companies to discuss stem-cell research on Monday and will then look at sustainable energy technology on Tuesday before heading back to London.

Yet for all Blair's efforts to make the trip an economic fact-finding mission, the fighting in southern Lebanon has taken up most of his time.

Lebanon

In his speech to the News Corp. gathering, Blair said he feels ``complete inner confidence'' in his views on fighting terrorism and security, days after ministers in his government suggested his approach may be wrong.

The prime minister said terrorism cannot be defeated by military measures alone and that the struggle is one of ``our ideas'' against ``theirs.''

Blair has rejected calls to push for an immediate ceasefire in southern Lebanon, saying a lasting peace can only be achieved if both Hezbollah and Israel stop the violence. Former foreign secretary and the leader of Blair's Labour Party in Parliament Jack Straw on July 28 said Israel's reprisal had been ``disproportionate.''

Blair reiterated his calls for a Lebanon ``free from militia and foreign interference'' and called for a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

``What has happened in Lebanon and Gaza will happen again unless we deal with the underlying causes of confrontation, causes that are cynically manipulated by those who want the Middle East to descend into sectarian chaos,'' Blair said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gonzalo Vina in San Francisco at gvina@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: July 30, 2006 22:00 EDT