Obama administration officials said Thursday that they were close to securing a compromise agreement to help reduce vast trade imbalances, a step that could ease conflict among the major world economies over commerce, currency and monetary policies. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said he believed that the world's leading economies, which will meet in Seoul on Friday, would agree that they should monitor and seek to reduce acute trade surpluses or deficits that threaten economic and financial stability. China and Germany, among others, sharply criticized an earlier U.S. proposal to set numerical limits to such imbalances. The new compromise appears devised to eke out a modest agreement on principles that each country would adhere to voluntarily. While the agreement is unlikely to lead to bold new steps by individual countries, Obama administration officials say an accord on broad goals may help calm fears that a flurry of recriminations over who is responsible for trade imbalances could lead to a competitive devaluations or trade war. 'I think it overstates the level of disagreement about the challenges we have ahead,' Geithner told reporters on the way from Singapore to Seoul for the Group of 20 summit meeting. 'We expect we'll see broad support for the type of cooperative framework the ministers of finance first introduced two weeks ago.' A senior Obama administration official, speaking in Seoul, said the advance draft of a joint communique under consideration by the member nations would adopt a set of 'indicative guidelines' that set common standards for assessing trade balances and prompting diplomatic discussions about them when they grow too large. As with all Group of 20 communiques, this one relies on peer pressure and the perception of shared long-term interests; it is not legally binding. But the group plans to ratify calls for the International Monetary Fund to a play a stronger and more prominent role in monitoring the trade imbalances and, when necessary, publicizing them, a process that still must be worked out. Word of the possible compromise came as U.S. officials scrambled to cool tensions that had flared over the Federal Reserve's decision to pump $600 billion into the economy to stimulate growth, which China, Germany, Brazil and other major exporters fear is intended to push down the value of the dollar and give the United States an advantage in global trade. President Barack Obama, in a letter to the Group of 20 released Wednesday, appealed for calm, while also imploring other world leaders to shift global economic demand away from its historical reliance on U.S. consumption and borrowing. 