The White House today released the President’s 2010 Trade Policy Agenda. The report is here and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk issued a statement,”President’s 2010 Trade Policy Agenda Focuses on Growing American Jobs Through New Market Access and Enforcing Trade Rules.” The USTR bold-faced this paragraph in Ambassador Kirk’s statement:

“Ninety-five percent of the world’s consumers live outside the United States, and the President’s trade agenda will help to get American workers and businesses access to as many of those customers as possible - in ways that affirm our rights in the global trading system and that reflect American values on worker rights, the environment, and open dialogue here at home,” said Ambassador Kirk. “The priorities in this Agenda can work to strengthen the rules-based global trading system on which the nations of the world depend, while opening markets and ensuring that American businesses and workers receive the economic benefits of trade.”

Agreed.

The President’s Trade Policy Agenda is part one of the report. On the pending Free Trade Agreements with Panama, Colombia and South Korea, the report again offers the Administration’s general, but non-committal support that might lead to enacting the agreements, perhaps.

If these outstanding issues can be successfully resolved, we will work with Congress on a timeframe to submit them for Congressional consideration so our producers can take full advantage of the opportunities presented by these agreements.

Nothing new there, really.

UPDATE (2:15 p.m.): CQ Politics reports, “Little Indication of Movement on Stalled Trade Deals.” Unfortunately so.

Our Dispatch from the Front report on Monday noted U.S. Trade Representative’s conference Thursday, “Jobs on Main Street, Customers Around the World: A Positive Trade Agenda for US Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises,” but the event has so much good content for the manufacturing sector that it’s worth a separate plug.

Three board members from the National Association of Manufacturers are participating:

Chuck Wetherington of Hanover, MD, the President of BTE Technologies, is on a morning panel, “SME Export Successes and Major Policy Barriers.” The company manufactures  physical therapy, occupational therapy, and athletic training equipment.

Roy Paulson of Paulson Manufacturing, a manufacturer of protective equipment, and Drew Greenblatt of Marlin Steel Wire, which makes custom-engineered steel wire products, join an afternoon panel, “Key Issues in Export Promotion.”

Ambassador Ron Kirk and the rest of U.S. Trade Representative’s Office, as well as the Small Business Administration and the Department of Commerce have all put great energy into export promotion programs, and the conference for small and medium enterprises reaches out to companies that can do much more in the way of selling their products abroad.

At the same time, government promotion and financing packages will be hobbled if U.S. exporters face tariffs and other trade barriers our global competitors do not. Canada, the European Union and Asian countries are all moving forward with trade agreements that make their exports more affordable than U.S. products. 

If the goal is a “positive trade agenda,” then the Administration should also be pushing for Congressional enactment of pending U.S. trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea.

(Frank Vargo, the National Association of Manufacturers’s vice president for international economic affairs, has blogged from Geneva this week at the ministerial meeting of the WTO.  This is his final report.)

Ah well, the strangeness and wonder of the WTO negotiating process continues. Consider, for example, the Chairman’s report at the conclusion of the 7th WTO Ministerial meeting that ended yesterday. (Report available here as .doc.)

The report states, “There was wide support for building on progress made to date. There was also support for not attempting to reopen stabilized texts.” (My emphasis.) This statement refers, among other texts, to the Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) text that the U.S. has not accepted. The clear implication from yesterday, though, is that many consider the text to be done, agreed, and not to be revisited.

Stabilized texts? Excuse me, but when the NAMA chairman Luzius Wasescha wrote that text at the end of last year, he stated right in his own text that, “Even though the included text is accepted as a basis for further work, we are far from a consensus among Members.” He also added “Anyhow, everything is conditional in the deepest sense.”

Whoa! By what magic elixir do we move from that December statement to the Ministerial Chairman’s statement yesterday that there is strong support for considering the text wrapped up and immutable? Is this sleight of hand? Or does the WTO have all the collective memory of a computer with a fried hard drive?

Example two: Press reports indicate at the end of the conference European officials lamented, “Doha does not seem to be fully on the agenda of the United States … there is no sign today that the Americans are ready to go forward.” (AFP report.) One said, “They want more concessions for a more acceptable package for the US Congress. Now, the problem is to find a way without damaging what has been achieved so far.”

What hypocrisy! In private, European government officials and business representatives are quite free in admitting their analysis conforms perfectly with the U.S. view - they are getting virtually no new market access out of the proposal so far. But they are willing to accept that, because they believe if they were to press for more industrial market access, the developing countries would turn right around and demand more European concessions in agriculture.

That has the Europeans terrified, for they feel they have given all they possibly can in agriculture. One more grain of wheat will break the European back and result in a revolt that will cause them to pull out of the whole deal. So they would rather build Fortress Europe around their agriculture and forgo market access gains in the rest of the world.

Example three: Indian officials still indicate a reluctance to have India participate in sectorals (but not the same degree of “shut-the-door” resistance I saw last year). But at the same time, India has free trade agreements cooking or under discussion with China, Japan, the European Union and Canada - and when India’s Prime Minister visited Washington recently, he indicated a free trade agreement could be possible with the United States as well. So my question is, who’s left? Why can’t you make cuts in the Doha Round?

The problem isn’t that the United States isn’t showing leadership, for it is. I spoke with Ambassador Ron Kirk a couple of times in Geneva this week. He knows the point to the Doha Round is getting meaningful market opening, and he knows the road to Doha goes through Beijing, New Delhi, and Brasilia. The problem isn’t U.S. leadership. The problem is getting others to get off their defensive agendas and join the United States is a commitment to open markets and grow world trade.

(Frank Vargo, the National Association of Manufacturers’s vice president for international economic affairs, is blogging from Geneva this week at the ministerial meeting of the WTO. )

You know, the process here in Geneva is really interesting. It’s like a plane that forever flies at 50,000 feet and can never get lower. The WTO Doha process just can’t seem to get below the big picture. Ministers from WTO countries are gathered here this week to take stock of the Doha Round, state their political will for a conclusion in 2010, and think of what can be done to move forward. And guess what some of them have come up with? Another ministerial meeting!

They would gather together in Geneva in a couple of months to take stock of where things are, issue serious statements about how things have to move faster –- and probably call for yet another ministerial. If the process were facilitated by ministerial meetings and “mini-ministerials,” we could have had three trade rounds by now.

Fortunately, calling another ministerial meeting in a couple of months is an idea that does not seem to have elicited broad support –- and hopefully won’t before the ministers leave Geneva tomorrow. The U.S. Trade Representative, Ron Kirk, has the right idea – let’s do some work, some eyeball-to-eyeball negotiating and horse-trading, with support from the WTO process. You have to have produce something for the stockroom before you can take stock.

It is rather remarkable, I think, that the gulfs that have prevented agreement are well-known, very visible, have obvious solutions, and yet keep being ignored in terms of a work plan. The WTO negotiating process is a managerial nightmare, lacking substantive goals, management strategies, and tactical plans for achievement. Frankly, the process could benefit from fewer PhD’s and more MBA’s.

The goal of negotiating rounds is to liberalize trade by reducing trade barriers. The Doha Round, in addition, has the goal of creating the maximum new market access for the poorest countries. This is not rocket science. You identify where the market access obstacles are, and you devise plans for reducing or eliminating them.

In the industrial trade negotiations, one thing you have to do is cut tariffs. And if you are going to cut tariffs, you have to go where the tariffs are. And by the WTO staff’s own calculus, about 2/3rds of the tariffs assessed on global industrial trade are collected by the advanced developing countries – especially Brazil, China, and India.

Yet instead of pinpointing reduction of those barriers as a key objective back in 2001, when the round started, as the years passed by, the WTO negotiating process continuously reduced the pressure to cut those tariffs. The consequence has been the prospect of less and less market access for everyone – for the least developed countries, the United States, and everyone in between.

The National Association of Manufacturers very much appreciates the quick, forceful action today by the Administration, led by U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, to respond to U.S. industry’s call of just two weeks ago for confronting the European Union’s unjustified ban on U.S. poultry.

The NAM was the only broad U.S. trade and industry group to join with our domestic poultry industry on September in a letter to Ambassador Kirk urging the U.S. Government to request formation of a formal Dispute Settlement panel in the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva to pursue a WTO legal judgment against the EU’s blatant politicization of food safety. Today, the USTR made that request. (USTR news release.) We are delighted with Ambassador Kirk’s leadership and support from around the Administration to attack this 12-year-old problem.

NAM has long led the outcry from U.S. industry confronting the EU’s abuse of the regulatory process. Science is clearly on the side of US industry.  This EU ban on US poultry is all about Euro-politics and protecting a less-competitive European poultry industry.  Unfortunately we see the same abuse of sound science from the EU to keep other U.S. agricultural products, from advanced biotechnology products to beef, which have been proven to be safe out of the European markets. Food safety regulations in Europe, the United States or anywhere else around the world need to be based on sound science, as specified in WTO rules, not on politics.

The NAM applauds today’s announcement that the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) is seeking to improve how trade policy can bolster the export opportunities of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). As SMEs account for one-third of all U.S. exports, this is a very important step on the part of USTR. The NAM represents thousands of SME exporters and looks forward to working with USTR, Commerce, and other agencies on this very welcome initiative.

SMEs already benefit greatly from U.S. trade policy. For example, SMEs account for 95 percent of all U.S. exporters to NAFTA, and ship an average per company of $630,000 a year to that market – pretty important sales to smaller companies. And SMEs account for 44 percent of U.S. exports to the nations of CAFTA — averaging $440,000 per company.

However, while SMEs benefit strongly from Free Trade Agreements and multilateral tariff-cutting negotiations, some aspects of trade policy bear more heavily on SMEs than large exporters. For example, complex and confusing rules of origin (where a product is produced) and labeling requirements are extremely difficult to comply with for small firms. Different foreign product standards and costly testing and certification requirements can pose insurmountable obstacles for some smaller firms. Focusing new trade policy initiatives on these obstacles in addition to continued market opening could really boost smaller company exports.

USTR’s request that the International Trade Commission examine export obstacles and opportunities is a great next step. Expanded policy attention to the particular export challenges faced by SMEs can pay big dividends, particularly if coupled with expanded export promotion services to get the job done. The NAM thinks that doubling smaller company exports would be a great goal, adding over $300 billion to U.S. exports, and lots of high-paying jobs.

From Dow-Jones, September 29, “US Secy Locke: Colombia Trade Pact Not Likely Ratified In ‘09“:

SANTIAGO (Dow Jones)–The U.S. Congress won’t likely ratify a free trade agreement with Colombia this year as it’s currently focusing on health care reform and energy-related legislation, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said Tuesday.

“It’s pretty doubtful” that the pact will be ratified this year, although the Obama administration is pushing forward with this agreement and similar ones with South Korea and Panama, the secretary said, noting that U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk is heading up the effort to conclude the trade deals.

Speaking to reporters in Santiago on the sidelines of the third Americas Competitiveness Forum, Locke said the U.S. aims to strenghten its trade ties with Latin America as the U.S. and Latin economies have greatly benefitted from existing ties.

“It’s in everyone’s economic interest to have trade agreements and lower tariff barriers,” Locke said. He added that President Barack Obama has indicated the U.S. is seeking an equal partnership with the countries in the region.

Secretary Locke and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk have been excellent evangelists for the economic benefits of trade agreements, but we’ve yet to see any of the advocacy converted into action.

President Obama spoke to two labor events in September, the AFL-CIO Labor Day picnic in Cincinnati and the AFL-CIO national convention in Pittsburgh. At neither event did he even mention the word “trade.” Organized labor could be forgiven for thinking the unions have been given a de facto veto over White House utterances or Congressional action on the pending free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea.

It hardly seems like the political environment will improve for expanding trade in 2010, when labor uses its campaign cash to bludgeon candidates into toeing their line.

See also the Investor’s Business Daily editorial, “Serving Castro First“:

On the very day Colombia was humiliated by Locke’s comments in Chile, the State Department announced it had sent acting Deputy Assistant Secretary Bisa Williams to Havana to negotiate new agreements with the ruling Castro oligarchy…[snip]

So why isn’t Colombia getting the same “pace of steps”? All it gets are sorry excuses. The U.S.-Colombia trade treaty was signed in 2006 and is ready to go. Its only barrier is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who doesn’t want a vote because she knows it will pass.

No country has ever been strung along so cynically.

The National Association of Manufacturers has submitted comments to the U.S. Trade Representative’s office for the 2009 review of the Andean Trade Preferences Act — a law that grants advantageous trade access to South American countries to encourage economic growth and democratic institutions and to fight drug trafficking. Excerpts:

The track record of countries granted benefits under ATPA is mixed. On the positive side, the NAM believes that Colombia and Peru have consistently upheld their responsibilities with regard to the ATPA, and that the growth and development through increased trade with the United States as a result of ATPA benefits has been strong, positive and integral to both nations’ economic growth. On the negative side, both Ecuador and Bolivia have not upheld key requirements of the ATPA program, particularly with regard to respect for foreign investment, and the NAM is extremely concerned that blanket extension of ATPA to either country would simply reward bad behavior.

The Obama Administration previously suspended Bolivia’s eligibility for the ATPA preferences, and in June it put Ecuador on notice, granting just a six-month extension. As the NAM states:

Unfortunately, there has been no improvement from the Ecuadorian Government. Indeed, the situation has continued to deteriorate. In light of these regrettable but undeniable developments, the NAM strongly recommends that, if the ATPA program is extended in some form beyond December 31, 2009, Ecuador’s eligibility be suspended based on its failure to meet the eligibility criteria. We further recommend that in renewing the ATPA legislation, provision be made for the Administration to restore eligibility for ATPA benefits if and when the Administration certifies that a country has come back into compliance with the eligibility criteria.

The NAM’s comments reinforce a letter sent to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk in June by major business groups pointing to the weakening of the rule of law under the Correa government.

And from Reuters last week, “Ecuador warns oil companies to keep up investments“:

Last year, his government defaulted on $3.2 billion in global bonds, calling the debt “illegitimate”. He has ordered petroleum contracts to be renegotiated as part of his push for greater state control over natural resources.

Of course, the Correa government’s legal attacks and demagoguery against Chevron are clear evidence that Ecuador is not living up to the requirements of the Andean trade preferences law.

Chevron today released videos and materials documenting a bribery scheme that would enrich the presiding judge in Ecuador, Juan Núñez, for ruling against the company in a multibillion lawsuit orchestrated by U.S. trial lawyers and environmentalists. (See below.)

We remember Judge Núñez from the sympathetic portrait “60 Minutes” did of him in its hit piece against Chevron earlier in May. The good folks at the Business and Media Institute destroyed the CBS pseudo-news report in an analysis, “‘60 Minutes’ Promotes $27-Billion Leftist ‘Fraud’ Efforts Against Chevron.” The whole piece is worth revisiting, but especially this part about Judge Núñez, under the title, “‘60 Minutes’ Gives Pass to Ecuadoran Justice System”:

The case will be heard by Juan Nunez, a judge in Lago Agrio, Ecuador. The ruling could come at anytime and Chevron is doubtful it will get a fair ruling. Pelley’s investigation took him to the Ecuadoran court, but he didn’t press the judge on the government’s poor reputation for fair justice.

“So who is the $27-billion judge? We found Juan Nunez in his court on the third floor of this shopping mall in the Amazon town of Lago Agrio,” Pelley said. “Texaco named the town for Sour Lake, Texas where Texaco got its start. Nunez struck us as serious and thoughtful. He’s been on the case for a year and he’s been out to the waste pits. The verdict will be his decision alone. There is no jury.”

Pelley inquired to Nunez if Chevron would get a fair hearing, explaining Chevron felt otherwise.

“That is not the case,” Nunez replied through a translator. “I believe that justice has to be given to everyone as they deserve – like a good father of a family, to give a child what a child is entitled to.”

However, there is no independent rule of law in Ecuador. The country’s judiciary branch is controlled by its leftist, anti-American president, Rafeal Correa, who came to power in January 2007. Correa had actually called those who brought the suit against Chevron “heroes” according to “60 Minutes,” showing there’s no impartiality by the Ecuadoran government.

In June, major business groups including the National Association of Manufacturers wrote U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk drawing attention to trade preferences granted to country, deeply troubling in light of the corruption. From the letter:

As found by the State Department in its annual human rights report on Ecuador released in February 2009, there are concerns with “corruption and the denial of due process within [Ecuador’s] judicial system.” U.S. businesses have also continued to see Ecuador’s repudiation of its legal obligations to U.S. investors and a politicization of the judicial system.

So there is a clear pattern of corruption, well documented, now punctuated by the videos released by Chevron.

Disclosure: I’ve already disclosed this numerous times, but in June, I went to Ecuador on Chevron’s dime for an on-site briefing of the issues.

President Uribe of Colombia meets with President Obama in the White House Monday. The Obama Administration has embraced trade as an impetus for exports and jobs, much more than one would have expected based on the 2008 campaign rhetoric. U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk especially has emerged as a consistent and clear advocate of trade agreements to boost the U.S. economy.

Now it’s time for the President to be just as clear, by making this statement: “I call on Congress to enact the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement as soon as it returns to Washington from the Fourth of July break.”

For more, see this paper from the Heritage Foundation, “President Obama and Colombia’s Uribe Meeting: A Pivotal Hemispheric Encounter.” The National Association of Manufacturers has a fact sheet and materials on the U.S.-Colombia FTA here.