COMMENTARY by Paul Magnusson
Clinton's Forked-Tongue Talk about Trade His rhetoric about openness and balance is sharply at odds with the Administration's secrecy over the China-WTO deal
Two worthy proposals crop up any time President Clinton talks about trade and globalization. First, the World Trade Organization needs to bring its deliberations out of the backroom and be more "transparent," the President says. And, he insists, the WTO's 135 member nations need to consider the
environment and labor rights when cutting their trade deals. Clinton raised these challenges at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle on Dec. 1, and again in his speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this year. Indeed, the goals are already written into U.S. trade legislation.
But is Clinton serious, or is he merely telling the environmental and labor allies of Vice-President Al Gore what they want to hear during this Presidential election year? And if he's serious, why is the Administration willing to jeopardize one of its top foreign policy goals -- getting China into the World Trade Organization this year -- just to maintain a legal precedent that it rhetorically opposes but tacitly supports?
The issue in a nutshell: Rather than open up the WTO process to scrutiny, the Administration is keeping secret the details of its deal with China to join the WTO. And rather than allow U.S. environmental groups into the process of formulating U.S. trade policy, it is fighting in federal court to keep them out.
FOR SOME EYES ONLY. Despite Clinton's calls for openness in WTO deliberations, the Administration has decided not to make public the actual agreement signed with China last November -- a key step in the process of admitting China into the WTO. That deal, reached after months of intensive negotiations, is classified "confidential" and is being shown only to members of Congress and to several hundred business lobbyists.
The White House says it's waiting to release the full details of the U.S.-China pact until a dozen other nations, and the European Union, have concluded their negotiations with the Chinese. That could take until June or beyond, allowing little time for public examination of the agreement before Congress votes on providing China with permanent normal trade status, the U.S. part of the bargain. Or it could derail the entire process until next year.
Administration officials cite precedent and a promise made to Beijing last November not to make the deal public. Previously, such bilateral agreements between WTO members and applicants to the Geneva-based trade organization have been kept confidential, the Administration says.
WASTING TIME. If the U.S. could gain a negotiating advantage, this secrecy might be justified. But in fact, the U.S. stands to gain nothing from such an approach. At the end of the process, all the bilateral deals between China and the WTO members are compiled, and the best aspects of each market-opening offer are provided to all WTO members. So it's in their collective benefit to share information. Promising Germany a 5% tariff on an imported Mercedes
would mean China would have to provide a 5% tariff on Fords made in Detroit and Volkswagen Beetles made in Mexico, for example. Keeping the agreements confidential means China's trading partners will waste time trading for concessions already made to other countries.
Then, there's the issue of membership on U.S. trade advisory bodies. To hear the Administration's rhetoric, you might assume the White House seeks the broadest possible representation on its advisory committees. Instead, business representatives enjoy a huge advantage over labor, environmental, human rights groups and other activists interested in trade policy, because only business has been allowed membership on Industry Sector Advisory Committees (ISACs). The committee members are privy to negotiating strategy and bargaining positions. And -- no surprise here -- members of these two dozen business advisory committees are provided the full text of the U.S.-China deal.
Environmentalists last year sued in federal court to gain membership on two committees advising the White House on wood and paper product issues. The White House had refused to appoint environmentalists, arguing that the committees were advising only on technical aspects of how trade laws and
agreements affected their industries. But a U.S. District Court judge found that the two committees in question were in fact advising U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky on such policy matters as environmental subsidies, eco-labeling, global-warming, and invasive species safeguards.
APPALLING APPEAL. The judge also ruled on Nov. 9 that the ISACs violated
requirements to balance their memberships. The court ordered Barshefsky and Commerce Secretary William M. Daley to appoint at least one "properly qualified environmental representative" to each committee. Rather than fully comply, the Administration has appealed the decision.
Clearly, it's time to reconcile the two versions of Clinton trade rhetoric -- foreign and domestic. "It is such hypocrisy for the Administration to call for the inclusion of environmental considerations in the WTO, but not at
home," says Patti Goldman, an attorney for the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, which is representing the environmental groups in the federal court suit. Such skepticism about Administration motives during an election year is rampant in Washington. Releasing details of the U.S.-China trade pact and opening up membership on the advisory committees might help to reduce the level of suspicion.
Magnusson covers trade policy for Business Week in Washington
EDITED BY PAUL JUDGE