China and other developing countries are resisting a U.S. proposal to cut tariffs on environmental goods, casting doubt on one of President Barack Obama's goals for a Pacific Rim summit he hosts next week.

The U.S. has been pressing for years, with little success, to liberalize trade on "green" goods, like wind turbines and solar panels, and services in World Trade Organization talks. Obama's efforts on the issue at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit Nov. 11-13 in Honolulu face the same divisions that have stymied the WTO campaign.

The atmospherics aren't good: the president this week said Chinese energy companies have engaged in "questionable" trade practices. His administration is reviewing claims by U.S. companies that their Chinese rivals are "dumping" solar panels on the U.S. market below the cost of production to gain market share and that Beijing is illegally subsidizing Chinese firms.

At the same time, Obama is under political pressure over a government loan guarantee to solar-power company Solyndra LLC, which later went bust.

China said Friday its solar-energy policies are WTO-compliant, pressing Washington to avoid protectionism and use more "rational" policies to address bilateral trade disputes. Developing the solar industry is a focus for Beijing to address climate change and energy security, and China hopes the U.S. will boost bilateral cooperation on solar energy, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a news conference.

All this complicates the U.S. push for APEC countries to pledge to cut tariffs to a maximum 5% on a broad range of environmental goods and services by the end of 2012. Proponents argue that lower tariffs would help countries like China that are major exporters of green products.

"Developing countries stand to be some of the biggest beneficiaries of this proposal," said Karan Bhatia, vice president and senior counsel at General Electric Co., a major producer of wind turbines and other technologies. " China and other manufacturers of clean technologies can have the assurance that governments won't raise tariffs above the nominal 5% level, and that's very valuable."

But developing countries argue that the U.S. is seeking too much too fast. Although China is a major exporter of green products, it insists that APEC agreements allow developing countries until 2020 to fully open their markets.

A U.S. trade official counters that APEC goals allow countries to liberalize on their own initiative before 2020.

"We have heard concerns about the timeframe and we are discussing our proposal with other APEC economies in an effort to forge consensus," the official in the U.S. Trade Representative's office told Dow Jones Newswires by e-mail. "However, timely implementation for developing economies will bring sooner the environmental and economic benefits that come from lowering tariffs."

APEC's 21 economies account for 44% of world trade and 54% of global economic activity, but the group's agreements, unlike those of the WTO, are nonbinding.

Opponents of the U.S. green-trade push are rallying around a counterproposal from Hong Kong that doesn't set a deadline, according to an Asian diplomat.

APEC countries are also divided over what products should be covered. Some developing countries want a greater commitment from the U.S. and developed economies to technology transfers, which would give their nascent industries a boost.

Beyond renewable-power generation like solar and wind, an agreement could also cover water-filtration technologies and energy-efficient products like fluorescent light bulbs. Tariffs on advanced, high-value products like these are often higher than a country's average industrial tariffs.

Malaysia , for instance, imposes 30% tariffs on fluorescent bulbs, compared to an average tariff of 9%, according to World Bank data. Indonesia and the Philippines , also APEC members, maintain 15% tariffs on solar photovoltaic panels, of which China is the world's top exporter.

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