1.   Associate membership involves lowering tariffs with the Mercosur countries.

2.   They wanted to link lowering tariffs with lowering of Communist repression of Chinese and Tibetan human rights.

3.   But instead, Barshefsky said the other countries held firm and eventually Japanese negotiators agreed to at least consider lowering tariffs on wood and fish products.

4.   Officials of some European countries had sought to postpone the talks on the grounds that lowering tariff barriers on Mexican goods could hurt European agriculture.

5.   Bahrain imposes the highest tariffs in the GCC and it has expressed worries that lowering tariffs would hit its income as it depends mainly on taxes.