Trade Agreement

WASHINGTON -- President Bush will sign the North American Free Trade Agreement on Dec. 17, while President Carlos Salinas de Gortari of Mexico and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney of Canada will sign the pact the same day in their countries, the White House announced yesterday.The agreement, which would eliminate trade barriers among Canada, Mexico and the United States, will not take effect until legislatures in all three countries have approved it or legislation putting its provisions into law.But the signing is nonetheless significant for two reasons.

Today marks the second anniversary of President Barack Obama's National Export Initiative (NEI), an ambitious effort to double U.S. exports by the end of 2014 and support millions of American jobs. In 2011, U.S. goods and services exports reached a record $2.1 trillion and supported the growth of American businesses across the country. Moreover, our economy has added private sector jobs for 24 straight months. Cities like Baltimore are fueling America's exporting growth. According to new data from the Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration (ITA)

Auburn, Alabama -- The North American Free Trade agreement has been hailed by free-marketeers across America. That's what can happen when you believe the government.Far from being what U.S. Trade Representative Carla Hills calls ''another splendid achievement'' of ''market-opening trade policy,'' this 2,400-page monstrosity is a triumph only for government-managed trade and the special interests that benefit from it. Maybe that's why the treaty is available for public viewing only a few hours a week, by appointment, in a room staffed with cranky clerks who resent mere citizens interrupting their $40,000-a-year conversations.

This ongoing Occupy Wall Street protest movements are the result of the Obama administration and Congress' mismanagement of foreign trade. When the real story is told it will be seen that it is unfair trade agreements such as NAFTA and others that have contributed to the loss of manufacturing jobs in this country. We have allowed unfavorable trade agreements to limit the sale of American products in foreign countries, while we tolerate the flight of entire trade sectors to China, Korea and other emerging nations.

SAN FRANCISCO -- American computer executives yesterday hailed a trade agreement reached during President Bush's trip to Japan, saying it could result in as much as $2 billion a year in extra sales of U.S. computers in Japan.The agreement between Japan and the United States, overshadowed by a confrontation over automobiles, aims to increase sales of non-Japanese computers to Japanese government agencies and state-owned companies. The agreement for the computer industry stands in contrast to the outcome of the negotiations over automobiles, which are widely viewed as a disappointment.

WASHINGTON -- Breaking with the president he has strongly supported, Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes announced his opposition yesterday to the North American Free Trade Agreement.Claiming that the trade agreement with Mexico and Canada would impose "a very heavy disproportionate burden on the production workers of this country," the Baltimore Democrat said in a Senate floor speech that "we ought to go back to the drawing boards."With Maryland Republicans looking for a heavyweight to run against him in next year's election, Mr. Sarbanes took the politically safe course, siding with organized labor, a major NAFTA opponent and one of his strongest campaign supporters over the years.

WASHINGTON -- In the latest sign of widening dissatisfaction with trade policies that many feel are compromising U.S. economic health, a group of prominent executives, politicians, union leaders and analysts have teamed up to fight for new controls on global commerce.High on their hit list is the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Bush administration negotiators are scrambling to complete by next week with Mexico and Canada.The administration has long touted the agreement as a badly needed instrument sanctioning free and open trade.

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration and key lawmakers struck an 11th-hour deal with U.S. sugar producers to shore up congressional support for a controversial trade agreement, senators said yesterday. A full Senate vote could come as early as today on the U.S.-Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). The White House believes it now has won the crucial support of many lawmakers from sugar-producing states who previously opposed CAFTA, helping ensure the approval of a free-trade agreement that has been a top priority for President Bush.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton urged business executives yesterday to be missionaries for the North American Free Trade Agreement, warning that members of Congress would "run away" from the pact in great numbers unless they sense a close House vote on Nov. 17."If they think it is close, I think we will win," said Mr. Clinton, seeking the executives' help in pressuring House members to support the agreement.In the latest blow to the agreement's congressional prospects, Rep. John D. Dingell, D-Mich.

WASHINGTON - In an attempt to pass a controversial trade agreement with Central America, the Bush administration yesterday indicated for the first time that it might be willing to negotiate a deal to benefit U.S. sugar producers, the major roadblock so far to passing the agreement. News of a possible sugar deal emerged after the Central American Free Trade Agreement, known as CAFTA, lurched forward in the Senate Finance Committee, where, by an 11-8 vote, the committee recommended its passage.

For 125 years, Baltimore has been home to Ellicott Dredges, a heavy equipment manufacturer and the world's oldest and largest builder of medium-sized cutter suction dredges, which are used for everything from harbor maintenance to beach restoration and environmental cleanups. As a manufacturer of such a specialized product, we have to look for opportunities to market anywhere there may be a demand — which is usually outside the state of Maryland and often far beyond the borders of the United States.

Democrats yearn for the bounteous days of Bill Clinton's presidency, when the economy was flourishing, there were good jobs at good wages and poverty was on the wane. So it's a puzzle that on one of his signature achievements - the North American Free Trade Agreement - the party's presidential candidates are sprinting away from his record as fast as they can. It's as though Republicans were calling for defense cuts while invoking Ronald Reagan. Even Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton can't bring herself to defend the deal her husband pushed through.

Cerro de las Tablas, Mexico -- The lemons in this rural village could have been sold in an American superstore. Instead, they fell to the earth and rotted before they could be picked. In this small pueblo perched on the Pacific coast in southern Mexico, the roads are made of dirt and a toilet is a hole in the ground. The region is lush and green. The fertile land is ideal for growing lemon and lime trees. It seems too beautiful to be so poor. But the closest city - Acapulco - is four hours away.

WASHINGTON -- Carmen Cecilia Santana Roma?a, a 28-year-old mother of three and a national trade union officer, was shot dead in her home in Antioquia, Colombia, on Feb. 7. Her murder came as little surprise; the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists is Colombia, which will become Washington's newest free trade partner unless Congress stops the deal. Some Democrats may be eager to show that they are not obstructionists on trade by cutting a deal with the Bush administration to "fix" the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement and passing the revised accord.

If you are ready to add some culture to your home or just shake up your environment, it's easy to take delight in carved masks from Kenya, sculpture and fabric from Burkina Faso, dolls from Uganda and South Africa, cut-metal wall hangings from Haiti, drums from Ghana and Senegal, and chess sets from Cameroon and Tanzania. It may be even easier to take such pleasures, knowing that the artists are seeing a fair share of the profits and that the people selling the imports went out of their way to not exploit workers in developing countries.

BEIJING --China and a number of African nations agreed yesterday on 16 trade and investment deals valued at $1.9 billion, as Beijing extended its efforts to create a broad economic and diplomatic partnership with Africa, a resource-rich continent. President Hu Jintao also pledged to extend $5 billion in loans and credits to Africa, to forgive past debts and double foreign aid to the continent. In a declaration read at the end of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, China and 48 African nations pledged a partnership based on "political equality and mutual trust, economic win-win cooperation and cultural exchanges."

WASHINGTON -- After long weeks of bargaining and cajolery, Bill Clinton is poised to record one of the most significant victories of his young presidency in tonight's showdown vote in the House on the North American Free Trade Agreement.Yesterday, for the first time, a flurry of new commitments put Mr. Clinton ahead of the NAFTA opponents in public commitments. And as the day wore on, the president's lead appeared to be widening.Mr. Clinton declared in a television interview last night that he "will be surprised" if the agreement doesn't gain approval.

WASHINGTON -- Whatever claims have been made for or against the North American Free Trade Agreement during the national argument over its passage, one thing is certain: None has been understated.To hear each side tell it, we are either on the verge of a golden dawn of global opportunity with an accelerating economy and higher-paying jobs, or a grim return to depression with wages and work standards dragged ever lower by an unequal partnership with an impoverished neighbor.Hyperbole has become humdrum as the charges and counter-charges have escalated: Images of the Last Supper have been invoked, the Louisiana Purchase recalled, and comparison made with the 1964 Civil Rights Act.There is likely to be more of the same today when the House of Representatives agonizes aloud over whether to create the world's largest free trade zone among the United States, Canada and Mexico.

HONG KONG -- Trade ministers representing almost all the world's governments reached a deal last night that sets a deadline for wiping out subsidies of agricultural exports by 2013, realizing a goal that U.S. negotiators have been pursuing for two decades. The final declaration from the talks, which resolved several issues that have stood in the way of a global trade agreement, also requires industrialized countries to open their markets to goods from the world's poorest nations, a goal of the United Nations for many years.

Bitter partisanship is putting the United States' trade agenda in the Americas in serious jeopardy. Faced with dim prospects for a hemisphere-wide free trade area, the Bush administration has focused on strengthening trade ties with Latin America through the creation of smaller, regional pacts such as the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which Congress ratified this year. The next phase of this strategy encompasses the Andean countries of Colombia, Ecuador and Peru (with Bolivia participating as an observer)