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Business Leaders Back WTO Agenda
By KEVIN GALVINAssociated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Despite protests over the upcoming World Trade Organization meeting, labor leaders have joined with their corporate counterparts on a presidential advisory board to support the administration's trade agenda.
A handful of the 35 panelists declined to sign a letter backing Clinton's WTO strategy. But administration officials said the expression of support by the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations as a ``conceptual breakthrough.''
``This sort of compromise and acknowledgment of mutual interest has been long sought after,'' U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky said in an interview Wednesday. ``This is the first time in six and one-half years that labor has not dissented from an ACTPN initiative, or that the business community has not dissented.''
Also Wednesday, President Clinton and the leader of the European Commission met to discuss the trade talks. Officials said progress was made on areas of dispute such as the U.S. export of genetically altered foods.
Clinton and the commission president, Romano Prodi, agreed to high-level talks before year's end on biotechnology, and the United States is assisting the Europeans in creating an agency similar to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
``This is a very sensitive subject,'' Prodi said. ``We need to give guarantees to our constituents that the scientific controls will be of the highest level.''
The White House chief of staff, John Podesta, led administration efforts to forge a strategy for the WTO ministerial talks, set to begin in late November in Seattle.
Labor leaders were pleased by the administration's call for a working group within the WTO to deal with issues such as worker rights and protections, which business leaders traditionally have tried to keep separate from trade deals.
Four groups, including the Consumers Union of America and the American Farm Bureau Federation, declined to sign the letter. But that did not dampen the administration's enthusiasm over the compromise between labor and business.
``This is where the most serious degree of conflict has existed over a marketization agenda,'' Barshefsky said. ``That gap has been bridged.''
The letter, written by Procter & Gamble's John E. Pepper, chairman of the commission established by Congress and named by Clinton, was signed by, among others, Robert Shapiro of Monsanto Co. (NYSE:MCT - news; NYSE:MTC - news), Curtis H. Barnette of Bethlehem Steel Corp., Thomas J. Donahue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and Jay Mazur, president of UNITE!, a New York-based labor union.
``While, not surprisingly, all of our members are not in agreement on every element of this agenda, a strong majority ... believe that the U.S. negotiating agenda as a whole is bold and appropriately comprehensive,'' said the letter, obtained by The Associated Press. ``We believe that if achieved, it will result in better jobs, higher living standards and increased economic opportunities for all Americans.''
Thea Lee, a trade expert at the AFL-CIO, said that labor's endorsement of the administration's negotiating strategy should not be seen as an abandonment of labor's concerns about the WTO and its historical lack of consideration for labor issues.
``The concept of the ACTPN letter was broad support for many of the U.S. goals, including putting forward a working group on trade and labor,'' Lee said. ``We have a lot of other issues and we have a lot of critiques of the WTO that aren't changed by our signing onto the ACTPN letter.''
The meeting with Prodi also yielded what Barshefsky said were ``encouraging'' signs in the standoff between the United States and Europe over exports of beef and bananas.
``We have to be cautious here because we know these two issues are difficult for European policy,'' Barshefsky said. ``But there seems to be renewed vigor on the part of Europe to reach mutually agreeable solutions.''
The United States has imposed punitive tariffs on more than $300 million of European products in retaliation for the 15-nation European Union's refusal to abide by WTO decisions involving American beef and bananas.
Prodi and Clinton also agreed to coordinate efforts to get developing countries committed to the new round of international trade negotiations.
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