Tariffs And Trade

The AMA is split on Bill's health plan. So is most everybody else.What if they had a General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and no one came?Comptroller, comptrol thyself.

Raymond Vernon,85, an internationally renowned business expert, died in Cambridge, Mass., on Thursday from complications of cancer. He helped develop the International Monetary Fund and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.Charles Hollister,63, who was well-known for his research into burying radioactive waste under the ocean, died after falling 60 feet while rock climbing Monday. He was vice president and senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod, Mass.

U.S. backs China as traderThe United States expressed support yesterday for admitting China to the world trading system and resumed talks on the matter that were suspended when Beijing crushed the democracy movement in 1989.Admission of China to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which regulates much of the world's trade, would boost Beijing's campaign to increase its role and acceptance in the international community. It already ranks as the 11th largest trading nation.

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration expressed confidence yesterday that it has enough Senate votes to ensure final passage tonight of a sweeping world trade agreement that would provide an important bipartisan victory for the White House.Administration officials said they had commitments from at least 57 of the 60 senators they need to prevail on a procedural vote that represents the last major hurdle before U.S. ratification of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The White House lobbied furiously last night to nail down the last few wavering votes.

Raymond Vernon,85, an internationally renowned business expert, died in Cambridge, Mass., on Thursday from complications of cancer. He helped develop the International Monetary Fund and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.Charles Hollister,63, who was well-known for his research into burying radioactive waste under the ocean, died after falling 60 feet while rock climbing Monday. He was vice president and senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod, Mass.

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration's long battle to win approval for a sweeping worldwide trade pact appeared in peril when the incoming Senate majority leader raised objections to it.In a coordinated series of speeches yesterday in Asia and in the United States, administration officials from the president on down feverishly tried to build momentum for winning the vote in special lame-duck sessions of Congress starting later this month.But the continued reluctance of Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan.

Since President Clinton and Japanese Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa hit a brick wall on bilateral trade negotiations last month, there is reason to worry about a relationship that deteriorated into a shooting war half a century ago and is now threatened with economic warfare.In Japan, officials have moved from chest-thumping bluster to ambiguous hints at the kind of accommodation Americans have learned to distrust. It is not enough.The Clinton administration, exulting in the political payoff of talking tough, has now taken its Super 301 club out of the closet.

Orange juice, it's not just from Florida any more. Nor is peanut butter only from Georgia or cotton textiles from South Carolina.While attention here has focused on U.S. trade relations with Mexico and Canada, and then with the nations of the Pacific Rim, a global economic tug of war has continued in relative obscurity. The stakes are far higher, and they will influence how much U.S. consumers pay for their groceries as well as for sophisticated electronics. Not to mention the potential creation of 1.4 million more jobs in this country in the next 10 years -- far more than could be sucked across the Rio Grande River by the North American Free Trade Agreement even in Ross Perot's wildest nightmares.

PRESIDENT BUSH has admitted ruefully that he's not very good when it comes to "this vision thing." Yet his success in convincing Congress to give him "fast track" authority to negotiate free trade agreements with Mexico and other nations indicates quite the opposite.President Bush backed his vision of North America forming the biggest consumer market in the world with 360 million people and an annual production of more than $6 trillion, with hard work to convince Congress that the free trade benefits will outweigh the disadvantages.

WASHINGTON -- The beleaguered 103rd Congress, whose Democratic leaders lost majority control in this month's election, returns to Washington today in hopes of scoring one final achievement: approval of a sweeping trade agreement that could boost global prosperity.It will be the first time in nearly five decades that Washington has been witness to the odd spectacle of ousted leaders presiding over a lame-duck session. And the stakes are much higher this week than they were in 1948, when the defeated Republicans returned for a two-hour post-election session to take care of housekeeping matters.

GATT may pass, but is it in our interest?I was in favor of the North American Free Trade Agreement, but I consider passage of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade not in the best interest of the U.S.NAFTA is important not so much as a trade agreement as a strategic investment in the long-term economic stability of Mexico and Canada. But economic growth and stability in countries elsewhere, though perhaps desirable, does not have the same strategic value to the U.S.GATT's proponents claim it will increase the number of high-paying jobs in the U.S. But removal of all tariff protection will actually decrease the number of low-paying jobs as labor-intensive production moves offshore.

Tomorrow, Sen. Paul Sarbanes has a chance to redeem his 1993 vote on the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he opposed in a shortsighted attempt to placate organized labor. The issue this time is the ponderous but vital General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.Following last night's strong show of support from the House of Representatives, the Senate takes up GATT, where the issue remains in some doubt. Unlike the vote on NAFTA, where Senate ratification was certain even without Mr. Sarbanes' support, the Democrat's "aye" could be critical this time.

WASHINGTON -- The beleaguered 103rd Congress, whose Democratic leaders lost majority control in this month's election, returns to Washington today in hopes of scoring one final achievement: approval of a sweeping trade agreement that could boost global prosperity.It will be the first time in nearly five decades that Washington has been witness to the odd spectacle of ousted leaders presiding over a lame-duck session. And the stakes are much higher this week than they were in 1948, when the defeated Republicans returned for a two-hour post-election session to take care of housekeeping matters.

WASHINGTON -- As the battle over a world trade treaty enters a decisive final week, the Senate's top Republican linked his own crucial support for the pact yesterday to a key concession by President Clinton on tax cuts.Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, who will lead the Republican majority next year, demanded that the White House drop its opposition to a capital gains tax reduction. He indicated that this would affect how he would vote on the 123-nation agreement to slash trade barriers worldwide.

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration's long battle to win approval for a sweeping worldwide trade pact appeared in peril when the incoming Senate majority leader raised objections to it.In a coordinated series of speeches yesterday in Asia and in the United States, administration officials from the president on down feverishly tried to build momentum for winning the vote in special lame-duck sessions of Congress starting later this month.But the continued reluctance of Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group's pledge to create a giant free-trade area by 2020 was a clarion call for action. But nothing more. If this statement of intentions has the desired effect, it will act as a goad and measuring rod for the 18 member nations rimming the Pacific that now produce half the world's economic output.As such, it is a boost for President Clinton's free-trade policy, a crusade his administration picked up from Presidents Reagan and Bush. But it masks more disputes than it resolves.

Hopes that the Americans and Europeans would resolve their dispute over farm trade policies and produce a new worldwide system to promote international commerce have been thwarted once again. Yesterday's fruitless meeting between President Bush and Jacques Delors, president of the European Community, condemns this key initiative to more months of inconclusive talk-talk.There is still a chance -- indeed a mandate -- for an agreement before presidential authority to present a package not subject to congressional amendment expires in June 1993.

President Clinton had better start paying close attention to the state of trade legislation if he is to attain his key economic objective on Capitol Hill this year. While he is focused on such blue-ribbon domestic issues as health care and welfare reform, the rest of the world is waiting for Congress to ratify the vast liberalization in global commerce negotiated over seven hard years under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.What had seemed a fairly routine ritual under which Congress would find revenues to offset a projected five-year $12 billion loss in tariff receipts is developing into an ideological battle over the linkage of trade with environmental and labor standards.

WASHINGTON -- The United States' trade deficit with the rest of the world rose sharply in July to the second-highest level in history, the government said yesterday in a report that fanned inflation fears and rattled the financial markets.The worse-than-expected trade report came as Japanese auto companies, in a highly unusual move, warned the Clinton administration that they might break off their cooperation with the American auto industry, particularly their purchases of U.S. auto parts, if the White House imposes trade sanctions on Japan.

Et tu, Bob Dole? Is the Republican leader of the Senate, long a champion of open world markets for Kansas grain, about to delay and possibly torpedo the most important global trade pact in history? Is he about to make common cause with organized labor, environmentalists, ultra-nationalists, isolationists, protectionists and others in the strange melange opposing a treaty that promises a $750 billion bonanza for the lagging world economy?The answers, alas, appear to be yes -- and for reasons that diminish Mr. Dole's presidential credentials.