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Local companies discuss their agenda for trade talks
Friday, June 4, 1999
By BRUCE RAMSEY
Representatives of Boeing, Weyerhaeuser, Microsoft, Frank Russell and Cargill yesterday ticked off a list of what they'd like to see on the agenda of the World Trade Organization's proposed Seattle Round.
The trade talks begin after a meeting of world trade ministers set in Seattle for Nov. 30 through Dec. 3, and are expected to last for several years.
The companies' hopes ranged from intellectual-property protections to eliminating tariff protections on agricultural trade.
The Boeing Co.'s wish list was the shortest. Tariffs on aircraft were abolished by the WTO's predecessor 20 years ago. Speaking at a forum at the University of Washington, Jay Culbert, Boeing's manager for international affairs, said Boeing wants freer trade. Open trading creates wealth and higher use of airplanes for travel.
Weyerhaeuser focused on China, and the need to get that country under the WTO's rules. Every time China gets angry at the United States, said Michael Bickford, director of corporate positioning, "Boeing and Microsoft are always targeted. We're farther down on that list, but we're on it."
Like Boeing, Weyerhaeuser sees that most of its new business will come from overseas. "We all need to be out in the world," he said, "and we all need some measure of stability."
Microsoft Corp. is focused on intellectual property. About 40 percent of all software in use worldwide are illegal copies -- and in some markets 95 percent are, said Brad Smith, general counsel, international, for law and corporate affairs.
Smith said Microsoft would like to see WTO nations "commit to a duty-free cyberspace."
The Frank Russell Co.'s focus is trade in services. Karl Ege, general counsel, said one example of a trade barrier are rules in places such as Malaysia that don't allow a foreign firm to practice law, even though they hire locally licensed attorneys. Such rules are justified by the need to "protect the public," he said, but the real reason "is to protect the local law firms, many of which have very deep local political connections."
Bonnie Raquet, who heads the Washington, D.C., office for Cargill Inc., Minneapolis, said agriculture is "about 50 years behind" manufacturing in opening to trade. The average Asian tariff on manufactured goods is 5 percent, she said; on farm goods, it is 61 percent.
Desmond O'Rourke of Washington State University said the U.S. tariff on Japanese beef is 4 percent. Theirs on comparable U.S. beef is about 50 percent. Liberalizing farm trade, he said, is vital for Pacific Northwest farmers, who already depend on exports for much of their markets and virtually all their profit.
O'Rourke said the WTO should try to set new rules on genetically modified food, a development he called "absolutely inevitable," and on the use of science to rule on questions of public health.
Raquet said the WTO should set new standards for farm subsidies, so that decisions to plant and sell crops "are done in response to market forces and not government management." In addition, "U.S. sanctions policy must be on the table" so that food shipments will no longer be cut off to countries for political reasons.
The forum, sponsored by the UW's program on Global Trade, Transportation and Logistics Studies, included no WTO opponents, though some had asked to be included.
P-I reporter Bruce Ramsey can be reached at 206-448-8391 or bruceramsey@seattle-pi.com
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