US to Promote Active, Comprehensive Trade Agenda in 2004

All Africa ^ | March 2, 2004 | United States Trade Representative

[yonif]

US Trade Representative

[A. Pole]

The Bush administration will continue in 2004 to build on its trade accomplishments by promoting an "active and comprehensive" trade liberalization agenda, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) says. By pursuing multiple free trade initiatives, the United States is creating a "competition for liberalization" that provides leverage for greater openness in all negotiations, establishes models that can be used more broadly and gives free trade a "fresh" political impetus, Robert Zoellick said in an overview of the administration's 2004 Trade Policy Agenda, which was sent March 1 to Congress accompanied by the 2003 report on trade agreements.
[...]
Addressing the special needs of developing countries, Zoellick said that the United States -- already the largest single-country donor of trade-related technical assistance -- will continue to aid the developing world in boosting its trade capacity and integrating trade into development strategies.

Free trade bump.

[Last Dakotan]

Robert Zoellick said in an overview of the administration's 2004 Trade Policy Agenda, which was sent March 1 to Congress..

Only in the Federal government do you send your agenda for approval when the year is already almost a quarter over. These inept fools make me laugh.

[Happy2BMe]

Thanks for the ping.

[Doohickey]

I sure hope it doesn't chafe the Senators' and Congressmans' butts when they wipe with it...

[Libertarianize the GOP]

bump

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Free trade creates higher-paying jobs for American workers

That's starting to sound an awful like, It's for the children..

Trade Act of 2002 tripled the level of trade adjustment assistance available to U.S. workers to nearly six billion dollars over a five-year period, which will help train American workers to compete for the jobs of the future.

All them high-paying new jobs acomin' why do we need welfare? A better plan is to starve the American workers. They'll be more willing to work for two dollars a day and owe their souls to the company-owned store.

open markets and level the playing field for U.S. exports of goods and services

We're told constantly that our companies cannot compete paying American wages. Offshoring is the only answer. What gives here?

building the capacity of developing countries to participate in the global economy

Like using tax dollars to build infrastrutures for the developing countries? More Dabhol Power Companies?

I'll ask Washington (if they are reading this). What does sending our technology, manufacturing, and IT-enabled services off shore and importing those goods and services have to do with free trade?

[lelio]

Since China joined the WTO, it has become America's sixth-largest export market. U.S. exports to China grew 75 percent over the last three years,

Robert doesn't give you the raw numbers and instead relies on trickery to make you think things are grand.

China's large installment purchases of billions of dollars of U.S. products --including soybeans, cotton, and manufactured goods -- during recent purchasing missions bode well for 2004.

While Robert cheers that they might purchase 1% (in dollars) of their trade deficit with us, I have to wonder how much of what they're buying was originally made in China. That and what politically connected donors are getting their goods bought.

The Chile and Singapore FTAs, which Congress approved in 2003, use innovative new mechanisms to meet the labor and environmental objectives set out by Congress in the Trade Act of 2002.

Laying off thousands of Carrier employees and setting up a plant in Signapore a couple months after this was signed is now called "innovative"?

It is a vision of a world in which a working family can save money on everyday household items because trade agreements have cut hidden import taxes.

Give me a break. Robert Zoellick's "vision" is for the US to become a nation of brokers, which I can't see as sustatinable.

[hedgetrimmer]

Robert Zoellick was never elected to public office and is not a member of Congress. He should not be making any trade policy or decisions based on those two facts.

[Euro-American Scum]

It is a vision of a world in which a working family can save money on everyday household items because trade agreements have cut hidden import taxes. It is a vision of a world in which a New York stockbroker, an Ohio autoworker, or a Mississippi chicken farmer can access markets in Costa Rica or Australia as easily as in California or Alabama. It is a vision of a world in which free trade opens minds as it opens markets, encouraging democracy and greater tolerance. And it is a vision of a world in which hundreds of millions of people are lifted from poverty through economic growth fueled by trade.

We're doing it for our kids.

[NRA2BFree]

We're doing it for our kids.

lol.. And if we tell this lie long enough Congress will believe it too. :)

[Wolfie]

The Bush administration will continue in 2004 to build on its trade accomplishments...

That, my friend, is a great sense of humor.

[Lael]

All them high-paying new jobs acomin' why do we need welfare? A better plan is to starve the American workers. They'll be more willing to work for two dollars a day and owe their souls to the company-owned store.

BUSHCO is a ONE-TERMER!!

Offshore Outsourcing will SINK the GOP!!!

[A. Pole]

Give me a break. Robert Zoellick's "vision" is for the US to become a nation of brokers, which I can't see as sustatinable.

Even the Swiss do not rely on banking to support their small nation. They export watches, chocolate, dairy and countless other products. They do not outsource much (unless they own companies in other countries) and they do not rely on mass immgration to replenish themselves. Having a gun at home is mandatory and their democracy is perhaps the only true one.

300 million people can not live out of financial services and printing money.

[Iscool]

Them little buggers have been busy in Washington...And we thought the FTAA was the train wreck...Shoot, that's nothing for what the puppet-masters have in store for us...

BUSHCO is a ONE-TERMER!!

I'd say that is likely so, but probably doesn't matter...Unfortunately, Kerry is in the same camp...Just by reading the article one has to conclude this thing is far bigger than Bush or Kerry...But the interesting thing to me is that I thought the US was being drug into the NWO...Turns out that the movers and shakers in the gov't and above are the creators of this disaster...They've been planning this at the Council of Foreign Relations for more than 30 years that I know of...

If anyone has a copy of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, they'd better hang on to it...It will soon become a collector's item...

[templar]

The Bush administration will continue in 2004 to build on its trade accomplishments ...

Really, I doubt that anyone could dispute that Bush has made some extremely significant trade accomplishments. Continuing to build on then might be cause for great concern for many of us though.

[templar]

300 million people can not live out of financial services and printing money.

Depends to some extent on how many are employed in the printing industry. Printing dollars is manufacturing and dollars are our largest export, our only trade surplus (we just need to start exporting real paper instead of electronic digital entries).

[Paul Ross]

China has become a major consumer of U.S. manufactured exports, such as electrical machinery and numerous types of components and equipment.

TRANSLATION: They are buying up at pennies on the dollar our closed and bankrupt factories which are then shipped (imported) lock stock and barrel and set up in China with the assistance of their U.S. partners (the 'services' they are buying). This is not 'trade'. This is conquest, 'booty' and 'spoils'.

[Paul Ross]

And eating the hamburgers that someone has 'manufactured' i.e,. flipped for us, is actually not really consumption, it is also actually manufacturing. I.e., the making of manure, a useful byproduct.

[Paul Ross]

Sigh.

I practically expect to see GWB running around, biting his lip, and telling those laid-off due to out-sourcing, "I feel your pain". Or, maybe we can expect a new book out "It takes a Global Trade Village to raise a child..."

This whole election will be unspeakably close because the administration cow-towed to the enemies of our industrial supremacy.