[asia-apec 1821] USTR Zoellick on WTO Doha meet and war

[GATT Watchdog]

Robert B. Zoellick
U.S. Trade Representative
Council on Foreign Relations
Washington, DC
October 30, 2001

"The WTO and New Global Trade Negotiations: What's at Stake"


In ten days, the United States will meet with 141 nations in Doha to
launch new global trade negotiations. Our aim is to lower barriers to
trade and raise hopes for economic recovery, development, growth, and
openness.

This will be the first global meeting since the tragedy of September
11. If we are successful, this mandate for trade negotiations would be
the first such agreement since the creation of the World Trade
Organization in 1994.

Today, I will try to answer four questions about what is at stake with
this endeavor.

First, what can we learn from the past that might influence our
perspective about this meeting on global trade?

Second, why is this WTO meeting important for America and the world
right now?

Third, what are the potential economic benefits for the United States
of these global negotiations?

Finally, but very importantly, what are the potential benefits for
developing nations?

What are the Lessons from the Past?

Fifty-four years ago this very day, representatives of 23 nations
assembled in the Palais des Nations in Geneva to sign what would
become an historic agreement: the General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade.

The autumn of 1947 was a time of both anxiety and nascent opportunity.
Amidst the devastation after World War II, the United States was
beginning to frame a political, security, and economic strategy for
what became known as the Cold War. Earlier in the year, President
Truman had announced a doctrine about using economic and financial aid
to support free peoples resisting armed minorities operating through
networks of subversion. In June, Secretary of State Marshall had
launched a comprehensive program for the "revival of a working economy
in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social
conditions in which free institutions can exist."

It was clear to those individuals meeting in Geneva 54 years ago - and
to the American statesmen who backed them - that trade was
inextricably linked to recovery, development, and security. Within the
course of their lives, they had seen the optimistic modernization of
1900 transformed into the modernist nightmare of World War I. Then the
Great Depression, fed by virulent protectionism and parochial
isolationism, led to an age of dictators, another devastating war, and
even a Holocaust. Indeed, if they required a further reminder of what
was at stake in 1947, they need only consider their meeting place: It
was the once hopeful home of the failed League of Nations proposed by
President Wilson.

Yet Woodrow Wilson's forlorn causes had planted the seeds of other
ideas that were of great use to the diplomats meetings in Geneva. When
one of Wilson's internationalist disciples, Cordell Hull, became
Franklin D. Roosevelt's Secretary of State, he placed trade at the
heart of America's foreign policy. During the depths of the Great
Depression, and only four years after the passage of the protectionist
and destructive Smoot-Hawley tariff act of 1930, Hull had persuaded
the New Deal Congress to authorize the President to reduce U.S.
tariffs by up to 50 percent through reciprocal trade agreements. Hull'
s handiwork, the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934, was the
forerunner of later grants of "fast track" trade negotiating
authority; indeed, the trade negotiating bills of today still include
some of the original authorizing language that Hull drafted in 1934.

Secretary Hull, who was - in the words of one biographer - a cautious
visionary, used this trade promotion authority to negotiate 32
bilateral trade pacts with 27 countries. His labors reduced tariffs
with these countries by an average of 44 percent.

Hull did something even more important than cut tariffs: each of his
agreements advanced a principle of "most favored nation" that created
a dynamic to reduce trade barriers among all countries subscribing to
this principle. If country A treats country B as "most favored," and
then country A grants country C a tariff reduction, country B gets the
same reduction. The more countries that accept this "most favored
nation" principle, the greater the multiplier effect of any
negotiations to lower barriers. The diplomats meeting in Geneva
enshrined this "most favored nation" principle into the new GATT. And
over the next 50 years the rule of MFN became so commonplace that in
1999 the U.S. Congress declared MFN to be "Normal Trade Relations" -
or NTR.

The Geneva meeting of 1947 was originally envisioned as a first step
toward a grander plan to institutionalize trade liberalization in the
world economy. The generation of "Wise Men" wanted to create an
International Trade Organization that would work with the new
International Monetary Fund and International Bank for Reconstruction
and Development to remedy the mistakes of the 1920s and '30s.
President Truman submitted the ITO charter to the Senate in 1949, but
the Senate never scheduled a hearing on ratification. Lacking the
support of the United States, the ITO expired.

The fragile GATT network sought to fill the gap, sponsoring eight
rounds of negotiations to lower barriers to international commerce
over the next half century. In doing so, the GATT contributed to the
greatest era of growth, development, and democratization in world
history. As the UNDP reported, the world has achieved a greater
reduction in poverty over the past 50 years than occurred over the
previous 500 years - in large part because trade increased
seventeen-fold and world output grew six-fold.

In effect, it took the past 50 years to reverse the mistakes of the
first half of the Twentieth Century. Despite this expansion, trade as
a percentage of the global economy is not much greater than it was 100
years ago.

Now we have to decide whether to keep advancing the international
trading system or to let it slip backward.

The last of the GATT negotiations, the Uruguay Round, finally reversed
the defeat of the ITO by creating a World Trade Organization. Yet no
sooner than was the WTO launched than it, too, came under attack.

Given the complaints about the WTO, it is important to clarify what
the WTO is and what it is not. The WTO is simply a set of rules,
agreed by sovereign states, to limit the discrimination against the
trade of one another; these rules are backed by a forum that
adjudicates disputes but cannot compel any action. The WTO is not an
international regulatory body; it has no independent power to develop
regulations; it cannot force any government to change its laws.

The WTO's role is to provide a means for countries to monitor
compliance with the rules and principles to which all have agreed. If
there is a dispute, the WTO offers the mechanisms to render opinions
and resolve differences - whether through changes in policies,
compensation through trade benefits, withdrawal of trade benefits, or
other negotiated results. By enabling countries to agree on rules for
global commerce, the WTO smooths economic interaction and integration
while respecting national sovereignty.

Indeed, as Professors John McGinnis and Mark Movsesian pointed out in
the Harvard Law Review last December, the WTO's procedural approach to
counter protectionism and discrimination against commerce reflects
many of the insights that underpin our own Madisonian Constitution.
The WTO respects decentralized authority - and state sovereignty -
while sponsoring transparency and rules that discourage discrimination
in trade, restrain protectionist groups, and encourage the
mobilization of groups that promote the general welfare and democracy.
As the authors conclude, "the task facing the [WTO] resembles that
facing all constitutions: to encourage the protection of public
goods - in this case, free trade and improved democracy - while
resisting the attempts of politicians, bureaucrats, and interest
groups to hijack government for their own purposes."

Since its establishment in 1994, the WTO has been a magnet for
countries that see the benefits of accepting the liberalizing rules of
trade - 14 additional nations have joined. At the meeting in Doha, the
WTO will accept both China and Taiwan as new members. In past months,
Moscow has intensified efforts to negotiate Russia's accession to the
WTO.

Yet the WTO stumbled badly in its first effort, in Seattle in 1999, to
launch a round of global trade liberalization. It has not been keeping
up with the challenges of a changing world economy.

The meeting in Doha needs to get the WTO back on track.

Why is this WTO Meeting Important Right Now?

So let me move to the next question: Why is this WTO meeting important
for America and the world right now?

The events of September 11 have set the stage for our work, just as
officials meeting in Geneva 54 years ago needed to consider the
imperatives of their time. America and the world have been attacked by
a network of terrorists who are masters of destruction, but failures
at construction. They stand for intolerance and abhor openness. They
fear foreign ideas, religions, and cultures. They see the modern world
as a threat, not an opportunity. They leave people in poverty and half
of humankind, women, in subjugation. Their strategy is to terrorize
and paralyze, not to debate and create.

The international market economy - of which trade and the WTO are
vital parts - offers an antidote to this violent rejectionism. Trade
is about more than economic efficiency; it reflects a system of
values: openness, peaceful exchange, opportunity, inclusiveness and
integration, mutual gains through interchange, freedom of choice,
appreciation of differences, governance through agreed rules, and a
hope for betterment for all peoples and lands.

Therefore, just as the Cold War reflected a contest of values, so will
this campaign against terrorism. Just as our Cold War strategy
recognized the interconnection of security and economics, so must
America's strategy against terrorism. By promoting the WTO's agenda,
especially a new negotiation to liberalize global trade, these 142
nations can counter the revulsive destructionism of terrorism.

Second, the WTO is falling behind developments in the world economy.
It needs a new mandate for negotiations to keep up.

Since the completion of the Uruguay Round in 1994, international
commerce has been transformed by new technologies, networks, business
models, and investment patterns. It has also been buffeted by
financial crises and other economic shocks. Governments are under
increasing pressure to protect local producers. The bicycle theory of
trade is again in force: If the trade liberalization process does not
move forward, it will, like a bicycle, be pulled down by the political
gravity of special interests.

To counter the slippage, nations are turning to regional and bilateral
agreements. The United States is committed to pursuing trade
liberalization globally, regionally, and with individual countries. We
are seeking to create a competition in liberalization with the United
States at the center of a network of initiatives. Yet the
international economic system will prosper most if the regional and
bilateral agreements fit within a global framework of rules.

Third, the launch of new global trade negotiations is important for
economic recovery in the short run and for economic growth over time.
As the Financial Times has written, "Starting a trade round would calm
jitters about the global economy by checking protectionist impulses
and laying the basis for the resumption of sustained growth." A signal
that the world's trading nations are committed to open markets - and
that they will resist protectionism - would inject additional
confidence and energy into financial markets. Businesses will focus
more on opportunities to be created and less on competition to be
thwarted.

Additional trade liberalization through the WTO will also enhance
productivity and efficiency, while helping to keep inflation in check.
As Fred Bergsten of the Institute for International Economics has
pointed out, trade liberalization and globalization can be credited
with about half of American productivity growth from 1996-2000.
Moreover, import prices account for virtually all the decline in U.S.
inflation during that period. Together, these effects reduced the
unemployment rate in the late 1990s by at least 1.2 percentage points,
permitted the creation of at least 1.5 million jobs, and pulled many
people thought to be unemployable into the workforce.

Fourth, America's ability to sustain coalitions against terrorism will
depend in part on our attention to the problems faced by our partners.
Many democratic governments in developing nations, already struggling
with economic challenges before September 11, now face staggering
difficulties. Countries throughout Latin America and Asia, and
increasingly nations in Africa, depend on trade with G-7 nations for
growth. Through August, the dollar value of trade by the United
States, Japan, and Canada had declined 3.6 percent compared to a year
earlier. During the same period last year, the trade of these nations
was up more than 19 percent. If the pace of this decline continues,
the volume of trade for these three countries will be $121 billion
less this year than last. Put differently, the size of this projected
decline is greater than the entire GDP of Ireland. And if this
slowdown continues for the United States, as I expect it will, 2001
will be the first year since 1982 that our trade numbers will actually
fall.


What are the Potential Economic Benefits for the United States?

A successful trade policy initiative requires, however, more than
strategic and macroeconomic benefits. We also need to answer another
question: What are the potential economic benefits for the United
States of these global negotiations?

America's farmers, workers, businesses, and families stand to gain
much from new negotiations. Already, exports support an estimated one
in five U.S. manufacturing jobs. Jobs in export industries, 90 percent
of which are in manufacturing, pay an average of 13-18 percent more
than other jobs. And multilateral negotiations help us set the
standards - in areas such as manufacturing, services, agriculture, and
e-commerce - that will define the future.

Furthermore, given that U.S. tariffs are already very low, new
negotiations are likely to bring other countries' tariffs closer to
ours. U.S. tariffs on industrial products average only about 3
percent - or even less given our various trade preference programs.
America will have almost no non-tariff barriers outside agriculture
once we have followed through on our obligation to end textile quotas
in 2005. The world's most rapidly growing markets - especially in Asia
and Latin America - have barriers three or four times higher than U.S.
levels. Therefore, the United States stands to gain much more access
abroad if others cut tariffs and liberalize, while America will
continue to benefit from lower priced imports.

America's farmers and ranchers are among those who have the most to
gain from a new trade round. For too long, agriculture was left
outside the disciplines applied to industrial goods. Over the past 50
years, tariffs on manufactured goods decreased some 90 percent;
agricultural tariffs barely budged. It took the Uruguay Round even to
compel countries to move from quotas to tariffs for agriculture. The
average permissible agriculture tariff is 60 percent; for
non-agriculture goods, 4 percent.

Therefore, we need new negotiations to continue the process of
fundamental reform of the agricultural trade just begun through the
WTO rules. Already, U.S. agricultural exports account for about 25
percent of farmers' gross cash sales; one in three acres is planted
for export. But we can do even better.

Agriculture also faces a host of non-tariff barriers, particularly
through the misapplication of sanitary and phytosanitary standards. We
need fair rules, based on reason and science, for the development of
biotechnology that can help feed the developing world, improve
nutrition, safely prevent losses from pests and disease, and reduce
the use of inputs that can harm the environment.

America's service sector now constitutes 62 percent of our economy.
Yet in this area, too, the rules to ensure fair competition were only
first established in the Uruguay Round. A new negotiation needs both
to advance liberalization and prod governments to keep up with rapidly
evolving business networks and opportunities for growth. As Fred
Bergsten and Catherine Mann have pointed out, rapid growth in the
services trade could also narrow the U.S. current account deficit
because, unlike in manufacturing, U.S. service exports appear to grow
more quickly than our imports when world and domestic growth rates are
equivalent.

The WTO rules also need to be updated to tap the potential of
high-tech innovations and e-commerce. Transactions over networks are
providing enormous growth opportunities for any service that can reach
customers electronically - be it retailing, financial, information, or
entertainment services. The opportunity for developing countries is
vast - providing them with new, more efficient means to reach global
markets for products and services in which they have a competitive
advantage.

A new negotiation would also provide an opportunity to promote
transparency in governance. There is support among many WTO members to
promote greater openness in the operation of government procurement
practices and to make customs rules and other trade-related measures
more efficient. Trade facilitation efforts are increasingly important
to ensure that bureaucracies and institutional rigidities do not block
trade that would otherwise flow freely. Such reforms will help to
combat corruption. We hope a new negotiation can also promote greater
transparency in the proceedings of the WTO.

Given America's relative openness, we can only maintain domestic
support for trade if we retain strong, effective laws against unfair
practices. Although some nations are critical of the U.S. application
of these rules, other countries are using them to an increasing
degree - and without the transparency and standards applied by the
United States. So we will continue to insist that any consideration of
WTO rules focus first on getting the practices of others up to U.S.
standards so that American businesses and workers can compete on a
level playing field.

We also recognize that some businesses - and the communities that
depend on them - cannot move as quickly as global financial and
information markets. So we will need to have effective safeguard
provisions that help industries if they are willing to take serious
steps to regain competitiveness within defined and limited periods of
adjustment.

We believe that the meeting in Doha can take further steps to
emphasize that trade and economic growth can and should support a
cleaner environment. A number of trade-distorting subsidies and
barriers - for example in fisheries and agriculture - are harmful to
the environment. Moreover, the WTO jurisprudence has been very
respectful of non-discriminatory national environmental policies.
Rather than have the WTO slip into environmental regulation, we
believe sovereign nations must have the right to choose their own
levels of protection for the environment, health, and safety
standards, even when higher than international standards. Furthermore,
the United States would welcome increased interaction between the WTO
and the secretariats of Multilateral Environmental Agreements, because
we believe international trade and environmental regimes should
operate cooperatively.

The United States will promote increased adherence to internationally
recognized core labor standards. With our support, the International
Labor Organization has undertaken work on the social dimensions of
globalization. Over time, we will seek to persuade other nations to
permit the WTO to contribute to this work while reassuring them that
we understand their concerns about protectionist agendas.

An essential benefit of further trade liberalization is for America's
families, who supply the backbone, muscle, and genius of the country.
It is common to talk about export gains from trade liberalization, but
lower prices and more choices from imports are important, too.
Together, the benefits from NAFTA and the Uruguay Round, through lower
tariffs and higher incomes, are estimated to amount to between $1,300
and $2,000 for the average American family of four each year.

There is even more to be gained. A University of Michigan study
forecasts that another global round of trade liberalization focused
simply on tariff reductions on industrial and agricultural products
would deliver an annual benefit of nearly $2,500 for American
families.

These are hefty tax cuts for families watching their budgets. And the
biggest beneficiaries of increased trade and competition through a new
round are lower-income Americans, who are least able to afford the
higher prices for food, clothing, and appliances.

At the start of this school year, Maryland and the District of
Columbia offered a week of sales tax relief so parents could save 5 to
6 percent when they bought clothes or supplies for kids going back to
school. So why not support lower prices of 6 or 8 or 10 or 12 percent
for food and clothes and school supplies not just for one week, but
every week of the year?


What are the Potential Benefits for Developing Nations?

Developing nations will have much to say about whether we succeed with
the launch; they represent 80 percent of the membership of the WTO.

So what are the potential benefits of a new WTO trade round for
developing nations?

Trade is a critical element - perhaps the most important element - in
economic development, offering the biggest, and most lasting,
dividends. A recent World Bank study examined developing countries
that opened themselves to global competition, and those that did not.
It concluded that the income per person in globalizing developing
countries grew more than three-and-a-half times faster than it did in
non-globalizing developing countries. The absolute poverty rates for
globalizing developing countries fell sharply over the past 20 years,
and the income levels of the lowest income households grew in line
with the overall economy.

Recent history illustrates the transforming power of trade and open
economies, and the perils of protectionism and economic mismanagement.
Consider the experiences of South Korea and Ghana. In 1967, South
Korea's per-capita income was an inflation-adjusted $550, and Ghana's
was $800. Over the next 30 years, South Korea implemented a series of
domestic economic reforms, became progressively more integrated with
the global economy, and reduced its tariffs. Ghana, by contrast,
maintained a closed economy and was wracked by political instability.
Thirty years later, South Korea's per-capita income had surged to
$10,360 - a figure that will grow even more rapidly once South Korea
opens up some of the closed sectors of its economy. And Ghana? Its
per-capita income had fallen to just $370. Fortunately, the new
democratically-elected leaders of Ghana - whom I have had the pleasure
to meet - are also now committed to trade liberalization.
These are not isolated examples. A number of other countries -
Singapore, China, and Malaysia - have achieved growth rates
approximating South Korea's as they have opened up their economies.
And dozens of countries, too many of them in Africa, have had their
economies stagnate - if not contract - as a result of economic
mismanagement spanning decades.

As President Bush has said, "Trade creates jobs for the unemployed.
When we negotiate for open markets, we are providing new hope for the
world's poor. And when we promote open trade, we are promoting
political freedom. Societies that open to commerce across their
borders will open to democracy within their borders."

Special preferential trade liberalization measures - such as the
Generalized System of Preferences, the African Growth and Opportunity
Act, and the Caribbean Basin Initiative - have helped developing
nations to help themselves. Yet more needs to be done. Most developing
nations have yet to experience the benefits of trade and open markets.
The world's 49 least developed countries, where more than 10 percent
of the world's people reside, account for fewer than 1 percent of the
world's exports. The data are only marginally better for many of the
world's other developing nations.

One of our primary objectives in launching a new global negotiation is
to use trade and openness to bring new opportunities and new hope to
the poorest among us. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has
succinctly spoken to the need for developing nations to become more
active participants in the global economy: "The poor are poor not
because of too much globalization, but because of too little."
Similarly, Jim Wolfensohn and Horst Kohler, leaders of the World Bank
and IMF, respectively, have pointed out that while debt relief will
help poor countries conserve their existing resources, increased
exports are critical if they are going to generate new resources.

The flagging fortunes of so many developing nations, coupled with the
difficult economic times, underscores the importance of launching new
global trade negotiations. The trade liberalization ushered in by the
Uruguay Round highlights the potential of more trade for developing
nations. In the six years following the round's completion, exports
from developing nations grew by nearly $1 trillion, to a level of $2.4
trillion. Last year, developing countries exported $73 billion worth
of information technology to the United States - a 43 percent increase
since 1996, the year before the multilateral Information Technology
Agreement had been implemented. Similarly, the dramatic reduction of
tariffs in the chemical sector helped developing countries increase
exports to the United States by 87 percent between 1994 and 2000. The
total value of these exports now exceeds $10 billion.

A study by Joseph Francois, of Erasmus University in Rotterdam,
forecasts that new global trade negotiations could generate
approximately $90-$190 billion a year in the form of higher incomes
for developing nations. In particular, liberalization of the global
agriculture market - a top priority for the United States - is
arguably the single greatest contribution that new negotiations can
make to poverty alleviation in the developing world. The U.S.
Department of Agriculture has estimated that complete elimination of
distortions in the agriculture trade would produce a 27 percent
increase in the annual agriculture exports of developing nations.

These benefits from more trade are not denominated in dollars alone.
Open trade advances political reform. Open trade swells the ranks of
independent businesses, and reduces the level of government
intervention in national economies throughout the world.

Some in the developing world have complained that the difficulty of
implementing the obligations of the Uruguay Round has caused them to
miss out on benefits. The United States is working with other
developed nations to address legitimate implementation concerns at
Doha. We will be willing to consider other concerns as part of a new
negotiation. We also recognize the need to provide aid and other
financial support, including through the multilateral development
banks, to help developing countries build the capacity to take part in
trade negotiations and to follow through on agreements. Over the past
year, the United States has provided more than $555 million in trade
capacity assistance - more than any other single country.

But developing nations must also do more to open their markets to the
world's goods, particularly each others' goods. While tariffs on
manufactured goods average 8 percent in developed nations, they are 21
percent in developing nations. If these countries want to experience
the benefits of the global economy, they need to do more to open
themselves to it.

As the United States and our trading partners pursue free trade, we
need to do so in a way that is consistent with our values and draws on
our compassion. For example, the Bush Administration is implementing a
flexible policy on intellectual property as it relates to medicines to
treat HIV/AIDS and other pandemics. This flexibility, afforded by the
major international trade agreement on intellectual property, enables
countries and companies to help deal with this tragic pandemic by
encouraging low-cost access to critical medicines. At the same time,
the preservation of intellectual property rules ensures incentives to
develop medicines and biotechnology that can help us cure and treat
diseases that have plagued humankind since our origin.

I recognize that some of the least-developed countries in the WTO find
it difficult to fully comply with the pharmaceutical patent rules
governing world trade. In response to these difficulties, the United
States has proposed granting the least developed countries a 10-year
extension, to 2016, to come into full compliance with all
pharmaceutical-related patent obligations under the TRIPs agreement.
We have also proposed a moratorium of at least five years on WTO
challenges to the actions of other sub-Saharan African developing
nations as they respond to HIV/AIDS, infections related to AIDS, and
other health crises, such as malaria and tuberculosis. I hope that
other members of the WTO will join the United States in supporting
these measures.

In sum, when we open markets we are opening new opportunities. As much
as developing nations may need debt relief and development aid, a
prerequisite for their long-term economic growth is full participation
with the global economy and trading system. Doha is the best
opportunity we will have in the next 10-15 years to expedite this
integration. It an opportunity neither we, nor the developing world,
can afford to miss.


Conclusion

Since early this year, the United States has been encouraging the
development of a coalition to launch a new global trade negotiation in
the WTO. This task has been complicated by the WTO's governance
procedures, which require consensus decisions on complex topics by
over 140 countries - big and small, developed and developing, islands
and land-locked.

The United States started by forging a close partnership with the
European Union. Although the United States and the EU have different
priorities, we have a shared strategic interest in fostering the
health of the global economy, strengthening of the world trading
system, and encouraging the economic vitality of developing economies.
In a small way, perhaps we can demonstrate how in this new era the
Euro-Atlantic democracies can work through differences reasonably in
order to advance important interests globally.

The United States and the EU have also reached out to an informal
network of countries on all continents, nations that reflect a variety
of concerns, yet which are drawn together by a shared interest in
promoting further trade liberalization. We have tried to listen and
learn from one another.

Some of these countries have met in informal meetings of ministers in
Mexico and Singapore. Other sessions have reflected regional
interests, such as those of Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America.
Other groups are based on stages of development, such as the developed
nations of the "Quad" and the Least Developed Countries. And some
assemblies focus on particular topics, such as the Cairns Group of
agricultural exporting economies. All these sessions and groups help
inform the WTO's work in Geneva, where our representatives work in one
forum.

Together, we have concluded that a key to a successful launch at the
Doha Ministerial is an agreed agenda that will accommodate the
essential interests of the various members and that will also gain
public support. Our goal is to achieve a mandate to launch
negotiations, not to complete them. The draft texts prepared by Stuart
Harbinson, the Chairman of the WTO General Council, have provided a
good basis for moving forward.

The last stages of our work will prove most difficult. I do not know
whether we will succeed. The United States must, of course, pursue our
national interests as well as promote a global interest. If other
countries refuse to cooperate and compromise, we cannot compel a
result.

If the WTO falters, the United States will continue to pursue trade
liberalization, turning to regional and country-by-country
alternatives. We are already engaged in regional negotiations, with
the Free Trade Area of the Americas, and in bilateral negotiations
with Chile and Singapore. Given the size and innovation of the U.S.
economy, we can be an attractive partner for others seeking to
liberalize trade.

It is our strong preference, however, to launch these global
negotiations in order to achieve a common good. Like those individuals
who met in Geneva 54 years ago today, we hope the representatives who
meet in Doha will perceive the larger stakes.

We hope to contribute to a result that will be the starting point for
another half century of development, growth, opportunity, and
openness. That is a goal for Americans that keeps faith with our past
and pursues the promise of the future.