[asia-apec 1152] Latest WTO hit in the Seattle Weekly

[David E. Ortman]

Latest WTO hit in the Seattle Weekly:

10 June 1999
Seattle Weekly
Quick & Dirty
by Eric Scigliano

HOW THE MINISTERIAL SET RELAXES

So what are 135 trade ministers really coming here to do when the World
Trade Organization holds its global confab in November?  The Wall Street
Jounral/Northwest (5/19) had Michael Mullen, director of the Asia Pacific
Economic Cooperation center, complaining about this state's lack of a
"cabinet-level trade director" to properly receive and schmooze these
poohbahs.  "These are senior-level people with a lot of free time," Mullen
told the Journal. "If the state had a cabinet-level trade director who was
focused on this and could say, 'Here are the people we need to get
together.' and do it, there are tremendous opportunities for bringing
foreign investment into the state."

Maybe that's what Journal readers want to hear.  But when he was rebutting
charges that the WTO hosts were "sellilng access" to the foreign officials,
Mullen told the Weekly (4/23) just the opposite: "The [foreign] government
people are going to be so tied up in negotiations that we don't even think
they're going to have much time for any kind of meetings with the private
sector."