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From: info <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2001 9:50 PM
Subject: [mobilize-globally] Zoellick Faces U.S., E.U. Trade Challenges This Week
Subject:
[StopWTORound] Zoellick Faces U.S., E.U. Trade Challenges
This
Week
Date:
Thu, 08 Mar 2001 15:10:33 +0100
From:
Erik Wesselius <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Tuesday March 6 1:04 PM ET
Zoellick Faces U.S., E.U. Trade Challenges This Week
By Doug Palmer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Trade Representative Robert
Zoellick will come face to face in the next few days with
two of his biggest challenges -- persuading a divided
Congress to approve new presidential negotiating authority
and resolving trade differences with the European Union
(news - web sites).
After a month of behind the scenes activity, Zoellick will
make his first public appearance on Wednesday since taking
office to outline the Bush administration's trade agenda to
the House of Representative's Ways and Means Committee.
Two days later Zoellick will hold his first meeting as U.S.
trade representative with EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy.
How much progress Zoellick makes on the two fronts could
hold the key to launching a new round of global talks this
year under the World Trade Organization (news - web sites),
trade experts said.
HOW QUICK IS QUICK?
In a speech last week to a joint session of Congress,
President George W. Bush (news - web sites) asked for quick
approval of ``president trade promotion authority'' to
negotiate new trade agreements.
But Bush offered no hint of how he would resolve deep party
differences that have blocked that legislation for seven
years and many are skeptical of quick progress on the issue.
A number of ``thorny issues'' could easily push the impasse
over negotiating authority into an eighth year, said Sherman
Katz, director of international finance and economic policy
at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Those include the desire of many Democrats for labor and
environmental provisions in future trade pacts and a strong
protectionist sentiment among House members from
steel-producing districts, he said.
To get the trade legislation, Bush would have to make so
many concessions in other areas ``that I just don't think
it's going to happen this year,'' Katz said.
That would be disappointing, but not necessarily fatal to
efforts to launch a new round at the next WTO ministerial
meeting in Qatar in November, said Clyde Prestowitz,
president of the Economic Strategy Institute.
``The United States has never had fast track at the moment
it launched an international round,'' Prestowitz said.
Resolving a number of stubborn trade disputes between United
States and the EU could be more important to the launch of
new world trade talks. ``We have never had a successful
round until the U.S. and EU get on the same page,''
Prestowitz said.
At the WTO's last ministerial meeting in Seattle in December
1999, the EU pushed an ambitious agenda that called for
multilateral talks on investment and competition.
The Clinton administration opposed talks on those issues,
arguing they could block an agreement in other areas, such
as agriculture, of greater importance to the United States.
But Fred Bergsten, director of the Institute for
International Economics, said the United States would have
to expand its agenda to get a round launched and he placed
more emphasis on approval of new negotiating authority.
Because U.S. negotiators lacked strong congressional
backing, it was difficult for the Clinton administration to
agree in Seattle to talks on issues, such as anti-dumping,
that would be controversial at home, Bergsten said.
Beef, Bananas
Meanwhile, U.S. industry officials held out some hope of
progress on banana and beef trade spats during Lamy's visit.
Steven Warshaw, president of Chiquita Brands International,
which has waged an eight-year battle to regain market share
in EU, said he expected Lamy to be confronted constantly by
the issue in meetings with Bush administration officials and
members of Congress on Thursday and Friday.
There is still the chance of a negotiated settlement between
the United States and the EU, Warshaw said.
Similarly, U.S. cattle producers remain open to an agreement
that would compensate the industry for the EU's ban on
``hormone-treated'' beef, said Chuck Lambert, economist for
the National Cattlemen's Beef Association (news - web
sites).
``It has to be something that benefits the industry and
recognizes the U.S. did win the case'' against the ban at
the WTO, Lambert said.
Resolving the two disputes would allow the United States to
drop retaliatory duties on $308.2 million of EU goods and
remove major irritants from the transatlantic relationship.
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