Brazil is preparing to take action against the US over what it says are illegal subsidies and other trade barriers following the collapse of the Doha round of talks at the World Trade Organisation in Geneva last week.

“The clock is ticking,” Celso Amorim, Brazil’s foreign minister, told the Financial Times in his first interview after returning from the failed talks. “Our understanding with the US was good throughout and it never came to acrimony. But they are the biggest subsidisers in the world in terms of what affects us, so we will have to see them in court.”