New York Times | August 5, 2001 | By RICHARD W. STEVENSON
WASHINGTON - Robert B. Zoellick, the United States trade representative, is an optimistic guy. He needs to be, given the difficulties he faces in pushing the free-trade agenda of the Bush administration.
At home, he has trouble in Congress, where the already tenuous support for trade initiatives has been weakened further by the slowing economy.
Abroad, he is struggling to stitch together support for a new round of worldwide trade-liberalization talks this fall, and to build some momentum for a trade pact encompassing North and South America.
Everywhere he turns, he is faced with questions about whether the global economy has become the enemy of ordinary workers. And even governments inclined to support trade agreements as a powerful source of economic growth have had second thoughts since the collapse of the last effort to push ahead - in Seattle in 1999. The violence last month at the Group of 8 summit in Genoa, Italy, has only underscored their concern.
"There's an odd balance," Mr. Zoellick said. "There's this tremendous opportunity for political and economic influence through trade. And there's an atmosphere after Seattle of wondering if globalization is a force that is in some way threatened by retrograde movements."
Mr. Zoellick's most immediate challenge is to win authority from Congress to negotiate trade deals that could not be picked apart through amendments. Without such negotiating power - long known as fast-track but now renamed trade promotion authority - it could be hard to persuade trading partners to come to the table prepared for serious give-and-take on tariff reduction and market-opening agreements.
President Bill Clinton could not persuade Congress to give him the authority in his second term, and his trade agenda languished. Congressional Democrats want provisions covering labor and environmental standards in trade deals, a stance opposed by most Republicans, who want the issues dealt with separately.
Last week, Mr. Zoellick had some cause for hope. The House passed a bill that would slash tariffs on trade with Jordan; the legislation included provisions to discourage Jordan from loosening its labor and environmental laws in search of a cost advantage in exporting to the United States.
Republicans in the House, where trade bills face their toughest test, have been offering some concessions in the hope of attracting enough Democrats to pass trade promotion authority. But on the day that the Jordan bill passed, Representative Dick Armey of Texas, the majority leader, postponed consideration of the measure until September.
Then, on Wednesday, the administration suffered a setback in trade with Mexico. Prodded by organized labor, the Senate voted to impose a variety of safety and insurance restrictions on Mexican trucking companies operating in the United States.
Mr. Zoellick wants to have negotiating authority in his pocket by November, when the 141 members of the World Trade Organization gather in Qatar to try to start a new round of global trade talks. Even trade proponents acknowledge that failure to get talks off the ground this time could mean a long period of stagnation at best and backsliding into protectionism at worst.
But it has been difficult for the United States to agree with its trading partners on what trade issues should be on the table, much less to resolve their differences.
Mr. Zoellick has been pressing for a focus on agriculture and service industries. Europe, with its tradition of heavily subsidizing farmers, is reluctant to concentrate too much on agriculture and wants to include topics like environmental protection and antitrust policy. Developing nations are concerned about being forced to make good on previous market-opening commitments that they have not carried out.
The job will not get easier if the United States and the rest of the world continue to suffer from weakening economic growth. Exposing local employers to more global competition at a time when they are shedding jobs - even with the promise of new export opportunities - is a tough vote for any elected official in any country.
The good news, from Mr. Zoellick's perspective, is that trade is at least back on the front burner, providing him an opportunity to make the case for the economic and political benefits that he says open markets can bring. "Both on the global side, because of the dispirited atmosphere after Seattle and the economic slowdown, and on the domestic side, the agenda was in some danger," Mr. Zoellick said. "Now at least the game is joined again."
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