Clinton's Course: Triangulation
The United States is busy reducing expectations for the world trade talks in Seattle.
After inviting the World Trade Organization to hold its ministerial summit in the United States and then inviting labor and environmental groups to crash the party, President Clinton's gang is now fighting to put a pretty face on what threatens to be a minor disaster.
The American challenge will be to bring 135 nations together on an agenda for the future while controlling thousands of protesters.
To it pull off, look for Mr. Clinton to use his favorite tactic: triangulation. By positioning himself between the radical protesters and the reactionary trade ministers, the president hopes to co-opt both groups and craft a document that looks a bit like an American wish list.
No matter the outcome, Mr. Clinton looks like the statesman who made the lions lie down with the lambs.
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The key goal for the White House is to increase (or at least mintain) public support for free trade while negotiating with our trading partners to open up more markets, especially in agriculture and services where the American producers are competitive.
The president has given moral support to those who believe free trade must become fair trade. He's said the WTO needs to be more open to outside voices. He endorses negotiating labor and environmental standards side-by-side with trade issues.
"These are issues whose time has come," said U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky.
That stance plays well with key Democratic groups like unions and tree-huggers, who earned a key victory over free trade when Congress refused to grant Mr. Clinton authority to negotiate trade deals on a "fast-track."
The business community doesn't mind the president's new rhetoric, because it realizes the world is a long way from recognizing U.S. labor standards. Observers say building political support has been one of the chief failures of the free trade movement.
Agriculture is the most emotional trade issue. Progress on liberalizing services is likely to be easier, if only because many developing nations have no domestic service industries to protect. The sectors ripe for liberalization are financial, telecommunications, construction and distribution.
One tough issue for the White House will be its hopes of extending a moratorium on electronic commerce tariffs and barriers. The battle over e-commerce is mainly with Europe. Barshefsky is confident of at least partial success.
To get all these things, the United States will probably have to give up one of its main tools to punish trade transgressors: anti-dumping laws.
These laws are a throwback to an earlier time, when countries had no recourse against cheaters except retaliation. The United States doesn't want to give up its right to fight back, but the rest of the world is getting tired of facing justice in an American administrative law court rather than at the WTO.
Trade negotiators are talking about a three-year time frame before a new deal is signed.
For the Seattle talks, "they will craft something papered over with enough language and trade mumbo-jumbo to indicate that the talks are moving forward," said Robert Litan, director of economic studies at the Brookings Institution. "But there is no way the leaders can afford to characterize this or have it characterized as a failure."
By Rex Nutting