Trading Partners

WASHINGTON -- Under political pressure to demonstrate concern for the plight of U.S. workers, President Bush yesterday unveiled a get-tough approach toward America's trading partners, saying the nation has "shown a lot of forebearance" and now wants action.The president, after meeting with business leaders who will accompany him on a four-nation Asian tour in early January, said he would tell the foreign leaders with whom he meets: "We want markets that are fully open to American goods and services."

Syria's bloody crackdown on anti-government demonstrators reached new levels of brutality this week with the killing of hundreds of civilians in the city of Hama, a hotbed of resistance to the regime of President Bashar Assad. For months, Mr. Assad ignored the international community's mounting condemnation of his repressive tactics, choosing instead to hunker and unleash his security forces against unarmed civilians. He continued to lash out even after Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait — nominal allies that have been reluctant to criticize a fellow Sunni Arab leader — took the rare step last week of recalling their ambassadors from Damascus in protest.

WASHINGTON - Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman told a House committee yesterday that the government has responded effectively to an outbreak of mad cow disease and is working hard to persuade trading partners to reopen markets to U.S. beef. "U.S. beef is safe for consumers in the United States and around the world, and we are urging our trading partners to base their decisions on science," Veneman told the House Agriculture Committee. At the same time, congressional critics prepared legislation that would prohibit lame or injured cattle from being slaughtered for human consumption.

The earthquake and tsunami that hit northern Japan on Friday were natural disasters of epic proportions that left the country to cope with not one but two huge challenges. Many thousands perished under the towering waters that swept ashore after the first temblor and wiped away dozens of coastal villages. In their wake, millions more were stranded without electricity, drinking water, food or shelter, and communications with the rest of the country have been virtually cut off. Compounding the humanitarian crisis is the specter of an environmental catastrophe stemming from the potential meltdown of one or more of three nuclear reactors at an electrical generating plant.

Many Americans struggling through the current recession would be happy to endorse the "Buy America" provision in the recently passed stimulus bill. Clothing made in China, cars produced in Japan and store shelves stocked with imports provoke disgruntled complaints about lower-paid foreign workers. But our protective instincts are largely misguided. This country is too closely tied to the global economy to dig itself out of the current trouble without helping our trading partners recover too. Still, only 35 percent of the public thinks trade agreements have been good for the country, a recent survey shows.

WHEN ECONOMIC sanctions against rogue regimes have worked, which is hardly ever, the world community agreed through machinery of the United Nations to impose them. For the United States to dictate sanctions to foreign firms is at best a fantasy.However satisfied a congressman feels in passing a bill forbidding a French firm from digging an oil well in Libya, it infuriates trading partners and invites reprisals against U.S. firms. That does not stop Congress from passing, or President Clinton from signing, a foolish measure in an election year.

MEXICO CITY -- For foreign investors doing business with Cuba, this is judgment day: the deadline for President Clinton to make a decision on the thorny issue of tightening the economic noose around Fidel Castro, and in doing so alienating some of the United States' closest allies.Clinton has until midnight to decide whether to waive enforcement of the most controversial provision of a new law aimed at the hemisphere's last Communist regime.The law allows Clinton to waive, in six-month periods, sanctions that could cost foreign companies hundreds of millions of dollars.

Your assignment: corner the widget market in Togo.But where to begin?How badly do people in Togo want widgets? Who will distribute them for you? And what to do about those pesky customs officers asking for bribes?Several dozen Baltimore and Washington area business people came to the Columbia Inn for two days this week seeking answers to just those kinds of theoretical questions.Baltimore's World Trade Center Institute put on the two-day seminar with the help of the Howard County Community College and the county Department of Economic Development.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton's controversial "fast-track" trade bill cleared a key hurdle in Congress yesterday, bolstering its chances for passage despite opposition by labor, environmentalists and GOP conservatives.On a voice vote reflecting bipartisan support, the Senate Finance Committee formally approved a bill that essentially parallels the one that Clinton sent Congress, paving the way for floor action in that chamber later this month.The lopsided vote in committee is expected to provide political cover for more senators to support the bill, which would strengthen Clinton's hand in negotiating trade pacts.

A state and culture as old as Japan's does not, in the space of a year, lightly give away the secrets of its historical direction.But the evidence is mounting that, narrowing our vision to the modern era, Japan is, in 1992, undergoing a revolution as fundamental as the Meiji restoration and as consequential as the events of 1945. It was, of course, a perverse coincidence last month that as Japanese military forces moved into Southeast Asia after an absence of 47 years, a Japanese Army officer wrote in Japan's most widely circulated magazine that it was time for a military coup d'etat to restore the confidence of a nation scandalized by corruption in its political system.

Many Americans struggling through the current recession would be happy to endorse the "Buy America" provision in the recently passed stimulus bill. Clothing made in China, cars produced in Japan and store shelves stocked with imports provoke disgruntled complaints about lower-paid foreign workers. But our protective instincts are largely misguided. This country is too closely tied to the global economy to dig itself out of the current trouble without helping our trading partners recover too. Still, only 35 percent of the public thinks trade agreements have been good for the country, a recent survey shows.

Every one of Constellation Energy Group's 1.1 million electric utility customers can relate to the crisis that forced the company into a shotgun takeover yesterday. Essentially, Wall Street threatened to shut off the power. More precisely, the national rating agencies threatened to cut off the company's credit. And without credit, Constellation was on the brink of losing what it needs to keep nearly all of its multibillion-dollar operation turned on and energized. It was a dilemma common to Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., AIG Inc. and other financial implosions of recent days.

WASHINGTON -- International trade talks, launched five years ago to reduce tariffs, quotas and other barriers to commerce worldwide, broke down in Geneva yesterday amid bitter recriminations between the United States and Europe. Peter Mandelson, chief trade negotiator for the European Union, charged that the United States sabotaged the talks by refusing to scale back domestic farm subsidies, which the Europeans say give American agriculture an edge in international competition. Top U.S. trade negotiator Susan Schwab countered that the European Union steadfastly refused to open its agricultural markets to foreign farmers.

DALLAS -- American consumers and businesses are growing increasingly reliant on Chinese-made goods, helping drive the U.S. deficit to an all-time high last year. The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services soared to $726 billion, up 17.5 percent from 2004 levels, according to figures released yesterday by the Department of Commerce. As in previous years, trade with China played a key role in creating the imbalance. Last year, the United States bought a record $202 billion more in goods from China than it sold to the Asian powerhouse, up from $162 billion in 2004.

Shortly after hearing from Miguel Tejada on Saturday that he no longer wants to be dealt, Orioles vice president Jim Duquette returned to his phone. This time he called several teams with which he had had extensive trade talks involving Tejada during the past month. "I told them that he has rescinded his trade [request] and that we don't have any desire to trade him at this point," Duquette said. Duquette will make a few more calls in the next day or two to some of the lesser suitors, letting all of baseball know that Tejada is no longer being shopped.

WASHINGTON - The U.S. trade deficit soared to a new high of $60.3 billion in November, the Commerce Department reported yesterday. The figure breaks all previous monthly records and confounds predictions that the deficit would diminish with the weakening of the dollar and the decline in the price of oil. Instead, the trade gap has reached historic proportions, putting increased pressure on the dollar to drop even further. The jump in the trade deficit showed a surprising weakening in exports across the board, from agricultural products to capital goods such as aircraft and semiconductors.

HONG KONG - A senior American trade official said here yesterday that the United States would limit apparel imports from China if American manufacturers provided evidence that such limits were needed. He spoke despite warnings from the Chinese government that it might challenge the American policy before the World Trade Organization. Grant Aldonas, undersecretary of commerce for international trade, said he expected American manufacturers to start filing requests for import restrictions with his agency as soon as next week.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush and Democrats want Japan and other countries to open their markets to U.S. goods, but in the international trade debate the United States does not come to the table with clean hands.In comparison with Japan and other major U.S. trading partners, the United States is less protectionist, but many barriers to imports remain.Quotas double the price of sugar and limit imports per American to no more than seven peanuts, a pound of dairy cheese and a lick of ice cream each year.

HONG KONG - A senior American trade official said here yesterday that the United States would limit apparel imports from China if American manufacturers provided evidence that such limits were needed. He spoke despite warnings from the Chinese government that it might challenge the American policy before the World Trade Organization. Grant Aldonas, undersecretary of commerce for international trade, said he expected American manufacturers to start filing requests for import restrictions with his agency as soon as next week.

WASHINGTON - Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman told a House committee yesterday that the government has responded effectively to an outbreak of mad cow disease and is working hard to persuade trading partners to reopen markets to U.S. beef. "U.S. beef is safe for consumers in the United States and around the world, and we are urging our trading partners to base their decisions on science," Veneman told the House Agriculture Committee. At the same time, congressional critics prepared legislation that would prohibit lame or injured cattle from being slaughtered for human consumption.