[asia-apec 1280] Fwd: US gets ready to armtwist in WTO meet

[BAYAN]

>Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1999 02:32:06 -0400
>From: Carol <radred at ix.netcom.com>
>Subject: Fwd: U.S. drops bombshell re WTO
>
>Date: Sun, 13 Jun 1999 17:51:07 -0500 (CDT)
>From: Ellen Gould <murrayg._dobbin at bc.sympatico.ca>
>
>The U.S. has just dropped a bombshell into discussions leading up to
>this fall's World Trade Organization negotiations in Seattle.
>
>U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky announced on June 1 that
>the U.S. wants a "top-down" approach in negotiations on eliminating
>barriers to trade in services - meaning that rather than countries
>negotiating on areas they all can agree they want liberalized, all
>services will be put on the table at once, including health and
>education.
>
>That leaves countries who object in the weak position of having to ask
>for exemptions for services they want protected, and, as with the MAI,
>potentially having to "trade off" these sectors in a final agreement.
>
>This means that all the dangers people identified in the MAI for
>Canada's health and education system will reemerge in the WTO talks on
>liberalizing services. Canada could not "discriminate" against foreign,
>private providers of these services.
>
>There has been no response as yet by the Canadian government to this
>aggressive move by the U.S. to massively expand what is up for grabs at
>the WTO negotiations.
>
>Contact your local member of parliament to insist that there be an
>immediate and public rejection of the U.S. plan to include all services
>in the WTO negotiations on the General Agreement on Trade in Services.
>Canada must demand that only sectors which countries have agreed to put
>foward should be the subject of negotiations - a "bottom-up" approach.
>
>Get in touch with health care and education service providers and alert
>them to what is happening. Their jobs and the public character of the
>Canadian system is at stake. The arguments regarding the threat from
>the MAI and this American move at the WTO are essentially the same.
>
>Critiques of this kind regarding the MAI can still be found on the
>Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives' Web site at:
>http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/index.html
>
>"Barshefsky said the U.S. will push for new and
>improved liberalization commitments in sectors such as finance,
>telecommunications, distribution, audiovisual, construction, education,
>health, travel and tourism, and professional services."
>
>BARSHEFSKY REVEALS U.S. PUSH TO BROADEN WTO SERVICES TALKS
>_______________________________________________
>Date: June 4, 1999 - Inside US Trade -
>
>U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky this week said the U.S.
>is hoping to significantly broaden commitments to be made in the
>upcoming World Trade Organization services negotiations by changing the

>negotiating format. In a June 1 speech before the World Services
>Congress in Washington, Barshefsky said the U.S. is hoping to move away
>from the so-called "request-offer" approach used to negotiate the
>Uruguay Round's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).
>
>Under this approach, members were required to apply new GATS rules only
>to service sectors they agreed to put forward during those
>negotiations.
>
>Instead, the U.S. is hoping to create a structure for the services
>talks to be launched late this year that more closely resembles the
>Uruguay Round's tariff negotiations for goods, she said. These talks
>applied generally to all goods except for those that were specifically
>exempted.
>
>"We need to look at whether we can come up with a more efficient
>negotiating structure than the request-offer process of the Uruguay
>Round," Barshefsky said.
>
>Specifically, Barshefsky said the concepts used to negotiate tariffs
>for goods could be employed in the services talks. In addition to the
>request-offer approach, previous tariff negotiations have used the
>zero-for-zero approach, in which WTO members agree to eliminate all
>tariffs in a sector, and the formula approach, in which members agree
>to reduce tariffs by certain amounts depending on their current
>levels.
>
>For services, these latter two approaches could involve negotiators
>agreeing to eliminate all barriers to trade in a certain service
>sector, or agreeing to a formula under which these barriers are reduced
>to certain negotiated levels.
>
>Barshefsky indicated that applying these other approaches in the
>services talks could quicken the pace of services liberalization
>because it would allow members to seek liberalization in areas without
>having to wait for members to put forward those areas. "We have to
>decide what combination of negotiating structures will work best in the
>services sector," she said.
>
>With this idea in mind, Barshefsky said the U.S. will push for new and
>improved liberalization commitments in sectors such as finance,
>telecommunications, distribution, audiovisual, construction, education,
>health, travel and tourism, and professional services.
>
>In her prepared remarks, Barshefsky noted that the GATS negotiations
>created a set of services rules, but only set "some" precedents for
>market access. "Even for WTO members trade [in services] is highly
>restricted," she said in her speech. "In most service sectors we see
>few specific commitments."
>
>She said that only 14 WTO members have made commitments in the
>audiovisual services sector, and no developing countries have made
>commitments on the gathering and dissemination of news. Also, fewer
>than 50 WTO members have made commitments on distribution services, an
>area Barshefsky called "critical" to liberalizing trade in goods.
>
>She also noted that while approximately 70 members have signed the WTO
>agreements on financial services and telecommunications, that means
>each agreement has not been signed by about 60 members.
>
>Barshefsky's comments mirror those made last year by other U.S.
>officials, who also said that another way to achieve an expanded

>liberalization package is to develop broad regulatory principles that
>all services regimes would have to follow. This approach would be in
>line with the WTO agreement on basic telecommunications services, which
>broke new ground by developing regulatory principles for the sector.
>
>This would also be in line with Article 6 of the GATS, which obliges
>members to ensure that their domestic regulations do not impede trade
>in services that are listed in members' schedules of commitments. Art.
>6 was written generally, and specific regulatory principles still need
>to be worked out.
>
>Barshefsky said creating regulatory principles for services is another
>U.S. goal in the WTO talks, and that the principles could include the
>notion that regulations should be developed in a transparent way and
>that they generally should not restrict trade. She said she is
>interested in receiving industry proposals on possible principles.
>
>Another U.S. goal for the services talks is to ensure that any
>agreement anticipates developments in technology, and that new modes of
>delivery do not face unfair barriers, Barshefsky said. This could
>include making sure that services such as health care are not
>discriminated against because they are delivered electronically.
>
>Before the new trade round is launched at the WTO ministerial meeting
>in Seattle scheduled for Nov. 30 to Dec. 3, Barshefsky said the U.S.
>wants to strike an agreement guaranteeing transparency in government
>procurement, which she said is important to services because
>governments are significant purchasers of services. In addition, the
>U.S. wants to extend the voluntary commitment made by WTO members in
>May 1998 not to place any duties on electronic transmissions made over
>the Internet.
>
>Finally, she said that work in regional trade arrangements such as the
>Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and the Transatlantic Economic
>Partnership (TEP) between the U.S. and European Union will help the
>U.S. prepare for the WTO talks. The FTAA is expected to complete a draft
>chapter of services commitments in the hemisphere by September, while
>under the TEP, the U.S. and EU are working on ways to recognize the
>qualifications to which each holds professional services workers.
>
>In other areas, Barshefsky signalled that the U.S. could be open to
>including investment in the next round of negotiations, but said that
>it would be "out of the question" to simply take up in the WTO the
>Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) talks that failed in the
>Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development. Instead,
>Barshefsky said it is an open question whether a "more modest" package
>could be included in the WTO talks.
>
>She said the key factor in deciding this question is whether a proposal
>can be put forward that would win enough support from both developed
>and developing countries. It would do the sector "no good" if members
>put forward a sweeping investment package that fails again, she said.
>
>Barshefsky noted that the MAI talks in the OECD are "effectively dead,"
>and that there is unlikely to be any further discussion of investment

>in the OECD in the foreseeable future.
>
>In a related development, officials from the U.S., EU, Japan and Canada
>were expected to meet yesterday (June 3) to continue work on reach a
>common position on the upcoming services talks, sources said. Sources
>said last year that Quad members have previously discussed the idea of
>agreeing to a structure for the talks that would move away from the
>request-offer approach (Inside U.S. Trade, June 19, p. 6).
>
>Inside US Trade - Volume 17, No. 22 -  Inside Washington Publishers
>
>For MAI-not (un)subscription information, posting guidelines and
>links to other MAI sites please see http://mai.flora.org/
>