The Brazil action was feared for long but didn't get the priority attention it deserved in Washington, analysts said. U.S. officials now must scramble to forestall Brazilian action before April, likely to affect U.S. exports across a wide spectrum.

Visiting U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said Washington was seeking talks with Brasilia before the retaliatory tariffs come into effect in 30 days but Brazilian officials said no proposals were on the table yet.

Brazil decided on the retaliatory tariffs after waiting for the United States to sort out subsidies offered cotton growers under its widely criticized cotton subsidies program. Brazil protested the subsidies in 2002, then again in 2005, 2008 and 2009 and won rulings from the World Trade Organization that called the subsidies discriminatory.

A 2005 WTO decision authorized Brazil to retaliate against U.S. goods and services but Brazil opted instead to allow the U.S. time to reform its cotton program.

The Brazilian deferment gave the U.S. side hope that Brazil wouldn't go ahead with the authorized retaliation, given the friendly ties between the two countries, analysts said. The Brazil announcement shocked the U.S. side, amid indications that Brazil already has garnered international support for its cause, in addition to the WTO rulings.

Analysts said the United States now would need to conduct a hasty reappraisal of its cotton program and hope for a compromise with Brazil before the April deadline.

Locke met with Brazilian Foreign Trade Minister Miguel Jorge and Cabinet chief Dilma Rousseff, favorite to win this year's election to succeed President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva. There was no immediate indication the talks had gone anywhere.

Brazil is authorized to impose $829.3 million in retaliatory sanctions against U.S. products that includes boats, cars, cosmetics, televisions and intellectual property. About $238 million cover intellectual property alone. Analysts said the punitive tariffs could be hurtful if implemented.

Brazilian officials said they would wait for the initiative to come from the United States, indicating they wanted substantial progress on the much delayed cotton subsidies reforms.

"With the administration's intent to bolster U.S. exports as a means for economic recovery, the trade-distorting programs and unfair trade practices that invite such retaliation must be eliminated," said Daniella Markheim and Scott Lincicome in a comment posted by The Heritage Foundation public policy research institute on its Web site.

"Tariffs against U.S. goods and services impugn their competitiveness in foreign markets," they said.

"Moreover, America's refusal to comply with adverse WTO rulings erodes U.S. credibility and influence in the debate shaping globalization and undermines the multilateral trading system. America can afford neither trade retaliation nor the loss of its leadership position in international economic issues and the WTO is already weakened by nations' inability to conclude Doha Round trade negotiations," said the comment.

The 2001 WTO meeting in Doha, Qatar, also called the Development Round, pledged to enable developing countries to "secure a share in the growth of world trade commensurate with the needs of their economic development."

Markheim and Lincicome said, "The (United States) should not only change its cotton program this year but it should also take a hard look at other needed reforms if its national export initiative is to be part of a legitimate trade policy."

Brazil's original WTO complaint, filed in 2002, alleged that several U.S. cotton subsidy programs, enacted or continued in the 2002 U.S. Farm Bill, violated the United States' obligations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, as well as the WTO's Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures and the Agreement on Agriculture.

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