Italian Likely to Lead World Trade Group : Commerce: Renato Ruggiero is expected to receive Clinton Administration’s support, ending impasse.

WASHINGTON — Breaking a deadlock that threatened to disrupt the new global trade organization even before it opened for business, the United States and the world’s other major trading nations have decided to name an experienced Italian trade official to lead the new World Trade Organization, a senior Clinton Administration official said Monday.

The White House is likely to announce its support, possibly as early as today, for Renato Ruggiero, a former Italian trade minister who has the backing of the powerful European Union, to become the organization’s first director general.

“I don’t want to say it is done. But I am very confident we have reached a consensus,” the official said. “I am satisfied we will be able to move forward tomorrow. I would be surprised if we did not come to a full and complete accommodation.”

Ruggiero is scheduled to meet today with U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor.

The naming of the first director general of the 123-member organization, which will establish the rules governing roughly 80% of the world’s commerce, was considered particularly important because the leader will be in a position to set the organization’s initial course. In Washington’s view, the organization must adhere to free-trade principles and steer away from protectionist practices, a course the Clinton Administration has set as one of its primary goals in the international arena.

In addition to the impact the decision is likely to have on the opening direction of the World Trade Organization, it touches on political considerations in the United States. Should the new body get off to a rocky start--particularly one of confrontation with the United States--it would be politically embarrassing for President Clinton as he is campaigning for reelection because he placed strong emphasis on the importance of free trade to the United States’ economic progress.

The Administration had originally supported former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari of Mexico for the position. But Salinas withdrew from consideration two weeks ago as his candidacy collapsed along with the Mexican economy, leaving the United States without a preferred candidate.

In exchange for its support of Ruggiero, the United States has extracted commitments that he would serve only one four-year term, that the director general who comes after him would not be a European, and that the World Trade Organization’s members, particularly the leading trading nations, would avoid the sort of hemispheric confrontation that erupted over this choice.

In addition to Ruggiero and Salinas, the initial list of leading candidates included Kim Chul-Su, a former trade minister of South Korea, making the selection a hemispheric contest that appeared deadlocked.

The United States’ opposition to Ruggiero and Kim was based on concerns that their backgrounds raised questions about their commitment to free trade. Ruggiero in particular, it was feared, would hew too closely to the European Union’s support for agricultural subsidies and support its efforts to limit European audiences’s access to U.S. films and television productions.

Although the United States could have sought to expand the list once Salinas dropped out, that course was never pursued seriously. Rather, the senior Administration official said, a consensus began to develop around Ruggiero over the past 10 days during meetings in Geneva and telephone calls involving Kantor and trade officials in Western Europe, Australia, South Korea and Japan.

The Administration’s likely choice of Ruggiero won the endorsement of Clyde Prestowitz, a former trade official who in the past has been something of a watchdog over the Administration’s trade practices.

“There wasn’t much enthusiasm for generating a new list of candidates,” Prestowitz said.

The World Trade Organization will replace the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, established nearly 48 years ago to oversee international commerce in the years immediately after World War II. The new organization was drawn up during the arduous seven-year negotiation that concluded in December, 1993.