That will get your attention. The MSM are all in a twist today that world trade talks may be dead for the rest of the Bush Administration. It certainly wasn’t the intention of this miserable Administration to give working people around the world a breather from the relentless assault of so-called “free trade.” But, we’ll have to take it where we can.
This handwringing comes after the latest Administration high-level staff shuffles which moved Rob Portman from the U.S. Trade Representative’s perch over to replace Josh Bolton has budget director–I suppose in the context of the world it’s a victory when the damage that Portman can cause is limited to U.S. workers.
The Financial Times has a front-page story with a banner headline entitled “US reshuffle downgrades trade.” The Washington Post, one of the biggest cheerleaders for so-called “free trade,” has this lament on the front-page of its Business Section:
By switching his chief trade negotiator yesterday, President Bush sent a gloomy signal to many trade experts and policymakers about the prospects for achieving significant gains in trade talks with foreign countries anytime soon.
The announcement that Bush was naming Rob Portman to become head of the Office of Management and Budget showed that in just 11 months as U.S. trade representative, Portman has established himself as one of the administration’s rising stars. But the personnel change comes as global trade negotiations are in serious trouble, with a major deadline just weeks away. The loss of Portman leaves the talks without a chief U.S. negotiator whose genial manner, combined with his political skill and mastery of detail, has impressed counterparts from other nations.
As a result, the move was widely viewed as indicating that the administration holds little hope for securing a far-reaching deal in the talks this year and possibly for much longer than that. The negotiations, known as the Doha round, were launched at a World Trade Organization meeting in 2001 with the avowed aim of substantially lowering trade barriers and changing trade rules in ways that would provide developing countries with much greater benefits under the international trading system. But vast differences continue to divide major players including the United States and European Union, especially over the issue of how much to lower tariffs on agricultural products, and pessimism has deepened recently that WTO members can strike a framework agreement by April 30 as they pledged last year.
Well, I say time to celebrate.
