[asia-apec 1716] USTR Barshefsky reflects....

[APEC Monitoring Group]

January 18, 2001

Barshefsky Passes on Advice

by MARTIN CRUTSINGER AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Memo from the Clinton team to the new  Bush administration on trade issues: Follow our successes but learn from our mistakes. Keep negotiating free trade deals with Chile, Singapore and the entire Western  Hemisphere. Skip the bruising battle with Congress over fast-track authority.

That was the advice President Clinton's top trade
negotiator, Charlene Barshefsky, gave to the incoming administration Thursday in her last speech as U.S. trade representative.
 
She predicted the Bush administration would push ahead with talks started by Clinton to create a free trade area covering the entire Western Hemisphere as well as striking separate agreements with Chile and Singapore.
 
 ''There is no question that the new administration will continue with the basic policy course we set,'' Barshefsky said in her speech to the Washington International Trade Association.
 
She urged the new administration to set as a top priority the start of negotiations to get Russia into the World Trade Organization as a way of incorporating the former communist giant in the global economy.

Clinton's efforts to move forward with an ambitious trade agenda were hindered by the fact that Congress refused to give him fast-track negotiating authority, which requires Congress to vote on any negotiated agreements on an
expedited basis without amendments.
 
Barshefsky said the administration's success in winning congressional approval to grant China permanent normal trade relations as part of its WTO membership bid was proof a president does not need fast-track authority to forge major  trade agreements.
 
She said the China vote showed the fallacy of the old argument that no country would negotiate with a president who did not have fast track, for fear that Congress would pick apart the deal.
 
She said Congress was more likely to vote for a specific trade deal with demonstrable benefits for U.S. industries rather than a generic request for negotiating authority.
 
''I would really urge the new administration to think very hard about'' seeking fast-track legislation, Barshefsky said. ''It will require huge political capital and in my view is not necessary.''
 
Barshefsky later told reporters she had discussed this subject with Robert Zoellick, nominated by Bush to be the new U.S. trade representative.
 
In the closing weeks of the administration, Clinton directed the start of negotiations with both Chile and Singapore on free trade agreements, following up on the administration's success of negotiating a free trade deal with Jordan in  October.
 
Barshefsky told reporters that based on her discussions with Bush officials, she expected those talks will continue.
 
Both Chile and Singapore have agreed to language, included for the first time in the Jordan agreement, that commits both countries to enforcing current laws on labor and environmental protection, Barshefsky said.

Key Republicans in Congress have objected to having this language included in a trade deal. But Barshefsky said she believed it was a good compromise and countered criticism that removing trade barriers increases pressure on a country to stop enforcing certain laws for competitive reasons.

The Clinton administration is leaving much unfinished trade matters, including fights with the European Union over barriers it has erected against the sale of American beef treated with growth hormones and against bananas produced on plantations owned by U.S. companies.
 
Barshefsky's chief agriculture negotiator, Greg Frazier, was involved in discussions with EU officials on Thursday in an 11th-hour effort to resolve the conflicts. But Barshefsky said the two disputes were likely to carry over to the next  administration.

Barshefsky said the effort to launch a new round of global trade talks, which collapsed in Seattle in 1999, could succeed this year, but only if the 15-nation EU agreed to put agricultural barriers on the negotiating agenda.
 
On the Net:

 U.S. Trade Representative: http://www.ustr.gov/