Wall Street Journal | By HELENE COOPER, Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration, searching for a bright spot ahead of what is expected to be a contentious summit of big industrialized countries in Genoa, Italy, this weekend, said it will work with the European Union to launch a new round of global trade talks in Qatar in November.
Instead of displaying the trans-Atlantic feuding that helped sink the Seattle World Trade Organization meeting in 1999, officials from the U.S. and EU trumpeted a new convergence on global trade issues ahead of the Group of Eight meeting. While trade analysts said much of that talk is public-relations spin, they noted a highly unusual joint column in Tuesday's Washington Post by U.S. Trade Rep. Robert Zoellick and EU trade commissioner Pascal Lamy.
"As the two biggest elephants in the global economy, the EU and the United States need to get our act together on trade," the two men wrote. Other countries, they said, "won't get off the fence until we do."
"Could you ever imagine Charlene Barshefsky and Leon Brittan getting together and writing a common [article] like this?" asks Jeff Schott, an economist with the Institute for International Economics and the author of "The WTO After Seattle." Indeed, Tuesday's joint effort was a stark departure from the peppery relationship that characterized the tenure of Ms. Barshefsky, the former Clinton trade envoy, and her European counterpart, Sir Leon. Their trans-Atlantic skirmishes were frequent and colorful.
During a joint appearance with Mr. Lamy Tuesday, Mr. Zoellick said the U.S. will not block EU attempts to negotiate an agreement covering foreign investment stakes in other countries at the WTO, although he said the U.S. won't use its influence to push for investment negotiations, either. While neither mentioned the doomed merger of General Electric Co. and Honeywell International Inc. by name, they said they will try to work out competition issues at the WTO.
But for all of Tuesday's bonhomie, the two economic giants face real challenges in making sure the WTO's next big meeting in Doha, Qatar, doesn't go the way of the last one in Seattle. For one thing, they disagree on the environment. The EU wants the WTO to link trade to environment issues, particularly food safety. Poorer countries, fearful that the Europeans will use the issue to keep out their exports, are balking at the proposal. The U.S., having already felt the sting of European bans against hormone-treated beef from the U.S., doesn't like the European position on the environment, either.
"The politics on this is extremely hot," Mr. Zoellick said Tuesday. "Some of the rhetoric that comes out of Europe on this scares the living daylights out of developing countries."
President Bush will be taking up the trade issue in Genoa this weekend as well, when he meets with other leaders for the G-8 summit. In a speech at the World Bank Tuesday, Mr. Bush sought to present his administration as sympathetic to the concerns of poorer countries who worry about globalization.
But he also took issue with the antiglobalization protesters who are already assembling in the Italian city. "I respect the right to peaceful expression, but make no mistake -- those who protest free trade are no friends of the poor," he said.
Bush officials say they hope the U.S.-EU "convergence" on trade issues will help mute some of the expected bickering in Genoa this weekend over missile defense and America's rejection of the Kyoto environmental accord.
Write to Helene Cooper at helene.cooper@wsj.comWall Street Journal:
