US. Trade Representative Barshefsky Calls for Mayors’ Support for China’s Accession to the World Trade Organization

By Kay Scrimger

Ambassador Charlene Barshefsky, U. S. Trade Representative, asked for mayors’ support for “one of the most important trade policy goals in many years — China’s accession to the World Trade Organization(WTO), together with support for permanent Normal Trade Relations for China.”

The Ambassador stated that, “China’s commitment to join the WTO will bring the world’s largest country, and its fastest-growing trading economy, into this network of opening markets under the rule of law. In the most basic and literal sense, China’s WTO accession will secure a broad-ranging, comprehensive series of one-way trade concessions on China’s part.”

“In the bilateral WTO accession agreement we reached in November [1999], China agreed to grant the United States substantially greater market access across virtually all sectors — goods, services and agriculture— and stronger guarantees of fair trade. We must only agree to maintain the market access policies we already apply to China and have applied for over twenty years, by making China’s current Normal Trade Relations status permanent.”

Ambassador Barshefsky said that the bilateral agreement is:

• Comprehensive, opening markets in agriculture, industrial goods and services; addressing unfair trade practices; and covering tariffs and other barriers and the border.

• Fully enforceable; and

• Designed so that its results will be rapid.

She noted that China must still complete bilateral market access agreements with a number of other WTO members, and it also must complete a multilateral negotiation at the WTO which would cover commitments regarding a range of WTO rules.

“The United States must grant China Normal Trade Relations or risk losing the full benefits of the agreement we negotiated, including special import protections, and rights to enforce China’s commitments through WTO dispute settlement,” she stressed.

In sum, Ambassador Barshefsky emphasized that the possibilities for the accession agreement with China include:

• “A new and fundamentally improved trade relationship with the world’s largest country, which offers practical, concrete benefits to cities and towns throughout America: stronger guarantees of fairness for our working people and businesses; new export opportunities that mean jobs and growth for Americans.

• “A decisive step toward deeper and swifter reform within China, strengthening the rule of law, and offering new opportunities and hope for a better life to hundreds of millions of Chinese, and

• “A relationship with the world’s largest nation, which may have moments of tension and volatility, but in which we also act to find common ground and strengthen hopes for peace.”