The tense climate suggests that the Doha Round of talks on expanding free trade will not kick off again until the decade draws to a close, according to Jean-Pierre Lehmann, head of the Evian Group, a trade think tank.
"We can perhaps expect the round to restart in 2009 or 2010," Mr Lehmann said.
Alan Oxley, a former insider at the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which was transformed into the WTO a decade ago, also forecast a three-year gap.
"If by that time there is no taste for serious reductions in trade barriers, then it will be time to decide what to do about the Doha Round," he said.
According to Mr Lehmann, despite all the talk about liberalisation, politicians in most of the 149 WTO members feel that they have more to lose than to gain from major reforms, largely because of domestic lobby groups.
"There's not a single politician who would want to lose that support, knowing that it might not be made up elsewhere," he said.
"The forces who wanted a failure of the round were much stronger, much more coherent than those who wanted a success."
The 1986-1994 Uruguay Round of negotiations was also suspended, for two years, but Mr Lehmann said the situation had changed.
Lone voices
While most farmers around the world applauded the collapse of the WTO talks, the governments of Australia and New Zealand, leading members of the 18-member Cairns Group of agricultural exporters, were lone voices of disappointment.
"It is very, very important to our agriculture industries and our manufacturing industries to get better access to the markets of the world and this is going to slow that process down," said Australian Trade Minister Mark Vaile.
In the United States, home to huge rolling farms, National Farmers Union President Tom Buis said: "From the US agriculture producer perspective, there was great fear that the trade round would severely tie the hands of the US government as it attempts to address the challenges facing rural America."
In France, where the strong farmers' lobby used its leverage on the French government to prevent the EU offering deeper cuts in protection, the mainstream FNSEA farmers' union called for a new approach.
"The time has come, not to say that it's a failure today, but to say that it's an opportunity for farmers, fishing communities or developing countries to have real public debate about food sovereignty," said Jose Bove, a French farming activist.
European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson has appealed directly to US President George W Bush to help revive the talks.
The EU trade chief said he hoped Mr Bush could block attempts to renew a farm support package and prolong special powers that allow the White House to negotiate trade deals "to enable us to complete the round".
"To make such an announcement would I think give a very powerful signal of his commitment to this round," Mr Mandelson added.
Trading blows
The EU, Brazil and India have in turn blamed Washington's refusal to make deeper cuts in its billions of dollars in subsidies to US farmers than it had offered for toppling the World Trade Organisation talks.
US Trade Representative Susan Schwab hit back Tuesday, saying EU criticism was "false and misleading".
The United States has accused the EU and emerging nations of refusing to cut their own duties on imported agricultural goods and for seeking too many loopholes.
Japanese newspapers said the breakdown of the WTO talks highlighted a lack of political will by developed nations.
Several Japanese newspapers have heaped blame on the United States.
"If only the US had cut farm aid, the European Union and Japan could have reduced their tariffs," the Asahi Shimbun liberal daily wrote in an editorial.
"Then developing countries such as Brazil could have fully entered industrial markets. That expectation was betrayed," the Asahi said.
The newspapers suggested that President George W. Bush's administration did not want to lose crucial votes from farming communities in mid-term elections due in November.