“A Full Range of Views”

Posted by Sallie James

It’s not often (especially these days) that a trade news item makes me laugh out loud. But, via an article in Inside U.S. Trade today, I saw a letter from United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk to Rep. Michael Michaud (D, ME) that did the trick.

Representative Michaud leads the House Trade Working Group, which is indeed working very diligently to stymie any hopes of meaningful trade liberalization. They wrote a letter in January to the USTR outlining their concerns about the upcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations. (I, too have concerns, but not the same ones as the HTWG.) Ambassador Kirk wrote back a fairly anodyne response that did not commit the administration to much of anything, except to follow up on the comments they have received from the Federal Register Notice.

Towards the end, though, came the punchline:

We are conducting follow-up meetings with these groups, including the AFL-CIO, the United Steelworkers, the Sierra Club, Oxfam, and Global Trade Watch, among others, to ensure we are hearing a full range of views on these issues. (My emphasis)

The Maytag Repair Man Would Make a Better USTR

Posted by Daniel Ikenson

Ron Kirk hasn’t exactly been burning the candles at both ends as U.S. Trade Representative.  And I don’t expect he’ll be racking up the frequent flier miles anytime soon, given his recent assessment of the trade policy scene.  Here’s what he had to say, as reported by Jerry Hagstrom of Congress Daily:

Speaking at the USDA Annual Outlook Forum, Kirk said members of Congress “are more open and receptive” to the idea of creating a trans-Pacific agreement because it could be written from scratch.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership comes “without any of the biases of the three [agreements] under consideration,” he said. Kirk added members of Congress also like it because it would take 18 to 24 months to develop and would not come up for approval until after the 2010 elections.

Basically, Kirk’s planning to hang his trade expansion hat on some future trade agreement that’s still in the conception phase and years away from a shot at reality, while giving up on the already-signed agreements with Korea, Colombia and Panama because those agreements are too much of a burden politically for Congress, who would prefer to start from scratch. 

That’s trade leadership from the Obama administration!

At this point, though, likening Kirk to the Maytag repair man might be too optimistic an analogy. The USTR hinted that he might find something to do on the enforcement side of his job description. According to Hagstrom:

Kirk stressed the administration’s commitment to enforcing trade agreements, saying that “enforcement is not protectionist.”