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U.S. Chamber to discuss trade promotion at conference
By Dan McCue
Staff Writer
Free trade agreements with Columbia and Peru hold promise for South Carolinians engaged in international trade, but the trade story of the year will be whether President Bush can broker the reauthorization of his authority to make such deals, according to a senior trade advisor to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
“While there are many trade issues that require the business community’s attention, probably none eclipse the importance of the president’s being able to negotiate free trade agreements with a free hand,” said the U.S. Chamber’s Leslie M. Schweitzer.
Right now the Bush administration, through a short-term “trade promotion authority” granted by Congress, is able to negotiate trade deals and put them up for an up-or-down vote in the U.S. House of Representatives.
But Democrats, who took control of Congress in January, have indicated that they want to have more of a say in these agreements as well as an ability to ensure that environmental measures to address climate change and prohibitions against labor abuses are included.
The current system is set to sunset in June. Schweitzer said she believes the country’s position in the global economy will be compromised if Congress meddles too much.
“Our credibility will be pretty low in the international trading community if each and every congressman and woman can amend the administration’s trade agreements once they hit the House floor,” she said.
Schweitzer plans to speak on this and a host of other trade-related issues at the upcoming S.C. Global Business Forum. Presented by the S.C. International Trade Coalition, the event is being held April 24, from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center.
The chamber, the world’s largest business federation, had hoped moderate, pro-trade Democrats in the new House majority would play a significant role in moving pending free trade agreements forward, but since January little has transpired in this regard, Schweitzer said.
“Basically, there’s a lot of politics going on, but we’re not getting much information in regard to when the trade agreements worked out with Peru and Columbia by the Bush administration will come up for a vote,” Schweitzer said.
She said both agreements would lower trade duties, the price U.S. companies pay for the right of their goods to enter a foreign market, by about 12%.
“The higher the duty, the less chance there is for a business here in the United States to compete in that market,” she said. “So this is pretty significant, and the trade we do with these countries is across the board, ranging from agricultural products to manufactured goods to heavy machinery.”
“What we’re talking about is an agreement that will put us in a far more advantageous position within the Andean market,” Schweitzer continued. “As a result not only will South Carolina companies sell more products there, but it helps us engage and open up a dialogue on a host of other issues.”
If progress on the agreements with Columbia and Peru bogs down, Schweitzer fears for the fate of other agreements in the works, including deals with Panama, Malaysia and Korea that are expected to be completed within the next three months.
She said a prolonged impasse over the right to negotiate new trade agreements would likely also cripple the Bush administration’s efforts to restart the Doha Development Round of global trade talks amongst members of the World Trade Organization.
The bottom line is that these agreements and negotiations represent the forging of tremendous opportunities for S.C. products and for world traders throughout the United States, Schweitzer said.
“That’s why we feel so strongly about this issue at the U.S. Chamber,” she said. “History has shown that every time duties are reduced, our exports rise and that’s a very real benefit to America.
Dan McCue is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dmccue@charlestonbusiness.com.
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