This article from yesterday’s International Herald Tribune offers an excellent rundown of where the U.S.’s support currently stands for global trade talks. People like U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab are diligently working behind the scenes to ensure that trade talks continue throughout the remainder of President Bush’s presidency and onto the next administration. Schwab makes the excellent point that whoever the next U.S. President may be, it is up to all of us to build the political will necessary to continue these vital WTO trade talks.

Excerpts below, full article here.

The most significant WTO meeting in three years aimed to pull off a broad compromise that, in short, would have let poor countries sell more produce to rich countries while giving the U.S., 27-nation EU and Japan new chances for their manufacturers and service providers in the emerging markets of Brazil, China and India.

“There are always going to be elections. There are always going to be politics intervening,” [Schwab] said, adding that the U.S. would continue to look for a trade package that generates global growth, alleviates poverty, creates new opportunities for American exporters and combats protectionism at home and abroad. “If there is a deal out there that meets those criteria, I don’t care when it shows up,” Schwab said. “We have to go for it. It can’t be dictated by our electoral cycle or anyone else’s.”

-Chris Scott

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 21st, 2008 at 10:59 am and is filed under ONE, Trade. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.