Environmental pressure group Friends of the Earth has warned that plans by the UK and US to revive global trade talks would hurt the world's poorest people.
UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown and US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson have called for a renewed effort to reach an "ambitious" deal.
World Trade Organization negotiations over a new global deal stalled in July.
Friends of the Earth said the rationale for kick-starting the so-called Doha round of talks was critically flawed.
Open markets
According to the group, any new deal would carry high social and environmental costs.
Friends of the Earth said that should the world's poorer nations sign up to trade proposals that have been put forward so far then they would lose out. "By exposing infant industry and farmers in developing countries to unfair competition from powerful multinational companies, farmers will be driven off their land and a process of deindustrialisation will begin," it said.
The proposals would also "open up markets for non-agricultural products such as forests and fish, threatening the natural resources that millions of people depend upon for their daily survival," the group added.
Mr Brown and Mr Paulson are due to meet in London on Tuesday and are expected to discuss their plans to revive the Doha round of World Trade Organization (WTO) talks.
The two men also are expected to discuss energy and security issues.
High stakes
Mr Brown and Mr Paulson published a joint letter in the Wall Street Journal on Monday, saying that "the Doha Round is just too important for developed and developing nations to let slip away".
"The stakes of Doha are high," they wrote. "Failure could reverse hard-won gains in openness and competition around the globe."
Talks stalled earlier this year because the US, European nations and other WTO members such as Brazil and India were unable to reach agreement on key issues such as farm tariffs.
""The US and Europe must take the lead in rescuing the Doha round," Mr Brown and Mr Paulson said.
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