LONDON (AFX) - Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown said the government's position on the single European currency is "one of pro-euro realism". Amid media speculation that he is preparing the ground for a postponement of a referendum on UK euro entry, Brown said in a speech prepared for delivery to a US and UK business audience in New York that the government remains "considered and cautious" on the question. "Our approach is and continues to be, considered and cautious - one of pro-euro realism," he said. "I am pro-euro because, as we said in 1997, in principle British membership of a successful single currency offers us these obvious benefits and could help us create the conditions for higher and more productive investment and greater trade and business in Europe," he said. "I am a realist because to short-cut or fudge the assessment, and to join in the wrong way, or on the wrong basis, would not be in Britain's national economic interest," he said. The government, which was re-elected in June, has said that within two years it will complete an assessment of whether to proceed with a euro referendum. Brown said that "around the future of the euro" there is a wider debate on the future of Europe: economic reform in the face of globalisation, enlargement to the east, and reforms aimed at making the EU closer to citizens. As expected, Brown called on the US and the EU to enter a proposed new world trade round, promising to cut their tariffs on industrial goods to zero. In what some commentators are interpreting as a further sign of his euro-scepticism, Brown advocated stronger trade links between the UK and the US. "Britain does not have to choose, as some would suggest, between America and Europe, but is instead well positioned as a vital link between America and Europe," he said.