GENEVA -- Trade diplomats said Monday they feared a prolonged and possibly damaging struggle was looming between the United States, Europe and Asia over leadership of the new World Trade Organization.


GATT envoys from different regions said positions in the contest for a WTO chief seemed to have been hardened by a high-profile declaration of support at the weekend by U.S. President Bill Clinton for Mexico's former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari.


"Clinton's statement will make it difficult for anyone to climb down, including the U.S. itself if it sees Salinas does not have wide enough backing," said one diplomat.


"Right now, no one is giving way and there is no sign of any of the three candidates pulling out," said another. "This could go on for a long time and that will not be a very auspicious start for the WTO."


Apart from Salinas, who stepped down from the Mexican presidency on Dec. 1 at the end of his term, the candidates are former Italian trade minister Renato Ruggiero and South Korea's trade minister Kim Chul-su.


The WTO is due to come into existence on Jan. 1. Over some two years, it will absorb the GATT -- the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade -- and be a permanent forum for trade negotiations as well as administering freer trade rules.


GATT Director General Peter Sutherland, who many countries would have liked to see in the WTO post, said last April he would not be a candidate, and has since insisted that he will not change his mind.


However, diplomats say there is no doubt he would stay on as interim chief if no successor is agreed by the end of the month.


Consultations among the 124 member countries of GATT over the past two months conducted by Hungary's ambassador Andras Szepesi have shown Ruggiero, the European Union flagship candidate, well in the lead, diplomats say.


The Italian, who has made at least two visits to Geneva to talk to trade envoys in the past two months, also has the backing of many former communist states and the African and Caribbean ACP group of former British and French colonies.


Backing Salinas, apart from the United States, are Canada and other Latin American countries, who may endorse him at a "Summit of the Americas" in Miami this week. But some diplomats say support in the region is not totally solid.


Geneva envoys said the candidature of the Mexican, who has not yet visited GATT headquarters, had not been helped by political assassinations in Mexico this year and accusations of top-level failure to ensure full investigations.


But they agree he has good credentials as a trained economist who, having steered his country through radical economic reform, could give the WTO some political clout.


Kim, who like Ruggiero has been to Geneva twice and traveled widely to promote his candidature, is supported by Asian countries including Japan.