NOUVELLES: ALLOCUTIONS — DG SUPACHAI PANITCHPAKDI

26 f้vrier 2004

American Leadership and the World Trade Organization: What is the Alternative?

National Press Club — Washington D.C.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I can sum up my message today in three sentences: The United States, more than any single country, created the world trading system. The US has never had more riding on the strength of that system. And US leadership — especially in the current Doha trade talks — is indispensable to the system's success. It is true that as the WTO's importance to the world economy increases, so too does the challenge of making it work: there are more countries, more issues, trade is in the spot light as never before. But the fiction that there is an alternative to the WTO — or to US leadership — is both na๏ve and dangerous. Na๏ve because it fails to recognize that multilateralism has become more — not less — important to advancing US interests. Dangerous because it risks undermining the very objectives the US seeks — freer trade, stronger rules, a more open and secure world economy.

The Doha Round is a crucial test. The core issues — services, agriculture, and industrial tariffs — are obviously directly relevant to the US. America is highly competitive in services — the fastest growing sector of the world economy, and where the scope for liberalization is greatest. In agriculture too the US is competitive across many commodities — but sky-high global barriers and subsidies impede and distort agricultural trade. Industrial tariffs also offer scope for further liberalization — especially in certain markets and sectors. But what is at stake in these talks is more than the economic benefits that would flow from a successful deal. The real issue is the relevance of the multilateral trading system. Its expanded rules, broader membership, and binding dispute mechanism means that the new WTO — created less than ten years ago — is pivotal to international economic relations. But this means that the costs of failure are also higher — with ramifications that can be felt more widely. Advancing the Doha agenda would confirm the WTO as the focal point for global trade negotiations, and as the key forum for international economic cooperation. The credibility of the institution would be greatly enhanced. But if the Doha negotiations stumble, doubts may grow, not just about the WTO's effectiveness, but about the future of multilateralism in trade.

This should be a major concern to the US for two reasons: First, the US is now integrated with the world economy as never before. A quarter of US GDP is tied to international trade, up from 10 per cent in 1970 — the largest such increase of any developed economy over this period. A third of US growth since 1990 has been generated by trade. And America's trade is increasingly global in scope — 37 per cent with Canada and Mexico, 23 per cent with Europe, 27 per cent with Asia. Last year alone, exports to China rose by almost 30 per cent. The US has also grown more reliant on the rules of the multilateral system to keep world markets open. Not only has it initiated more WTO dispute proceedings than any other country — some 75 since 1995 — according to USTR it has also won or successfully settled most of the cases it has brought. The point is this: even the US cannot achieve prosperity on its own; it is increasingly dependent on international trade, and the rules-based economic order that underpins it. As the biggest economy, largest trader and one of the most open markets in the world, it is axiomatic that the US has the greatest interest in widening and deepening the multilateral system. Furthermore, expanding international trade through the WTO generates increased global prosperity, in turn creating yet more opportunities for the US economy.

The second point is that strengthening the world trading system is essential to America's wider global objectives. Fighting terrorism, reducing poverty, improving health, integrating China and other countries in the global economy — all of these issues are linked, in one way or another, to world trade. This is not to say that trade is the answer to all America's economic concerns; only that meaningful solutions are inconceivable without it. The world trading system is the linchpin of today's global order — underpinning its security as well as its prosperity. A successful WTO is an example of how multilateralism can work. Conversely, if it weakens or fails, much else could fail with it. This is something which the US — at the epicentre of a more interdependent world — cannot afford to ignore.

These priorities must continue to guide US policy — as they have done since the Second World War. America has been the main driving force behind eight rounds of multilateral trade negotiations, including the successful conclusion of the Uruguay Round and the creation of the WTO. The US — together with the EU — was instrumental in launching the latest Doha Round two years ago. Likewise, the recent initiative, spearheaded by Ambassador Zoellick, to re-energize the negotiations and move them towards a successful conclusion is yet another example of how essential the US is to the multilateral process — signalling that the US remains committed to further liberalization, that the Round is moving, and that other countries have a tangible reason to get on board. The reality is this: when the US leads the system can move forward; when it withdraws, the system drifts.

The fact that US leadership is essential, does not mean it is easy. As WTO rules have expanded, so too has as the complexity of the issues the WTO deals with — everything from agriculture and accounting, to tariffs and telecommunication. The WTO is also exerting huge gravitational pull on countries to join — and participate actively — in the system. The WTO now has 146 Members — up from just 23 in 1947 — and this could easily rise to 170 or more within a decade. Emerging powers like China, Brazil, and India rightly demand a greater say in an institution in which they have a growing stake. So too do a rising number of voices outside the system as well. More and more people recognize that the WTO matters. More non-state actors — businesses, unions, environmentalists, development NGOs — want the multilateral system to reflect their causes and concerns. A decade ago, few people had even heard of the GATT. Today the WTO is front page news. A more visible WTO has inevitably become a more politicized WTO. The sound and fury surrounding the WTO's recent Ministerial Meeting in Cancun — let alone Seattle — underline how challenging managing the WTO can be.

But these challenges can be exaggerated. They exist precisely because so many countries have embraced a common vision. Countries the world over have turned to open trade — and a rules-based system — as the key to their growth and development. They agreed to the Doha Round because they believed their interests lay in freer trade, stronger rules, a more effective WTO. Even in Cancun the great debate was whether the multilateral trading system was moving fast and far enough — not whether it should be rolled back. Indeed, it is critically important that we draw the right conclusions from Cancun — which are only now becoming clearer. The disappointment was that ministers were unable to reach agreement. The achievement was that they exposed the risks of failure, highlighted the need for North-South collaboration, and — after a period of introspection — acknowledged the inescapable logic of negotiation. Cancun showed that, if the challenges have increased, it is because the stakes are higher.

The bigger challenge to American leadership comes from inside — not outside — the United States. In America's current debate about trade, jobs and globalization we have heard a lot about the costs of liberalization. We need to hear more about the opportunities. We need to be reminded of the advantages of America's openness and its trade with the world — about the economic growth tied to exports; the inflation-fighting role of imports, the innovative stimulus of global competition. We need to explain that freer trade works precisely because it involves positive change — better products, better job opportunities, better ways of doing things, better standards of living. While it is true that change can be threatening for people and societies, it is equally true that the vulnerable are not helped by resisting change — by putting up barriers and shutting out competition. They are helped by training, education, new and better opportunities that — with the right support policies — can flow from a globalized economy. The fact is that for every job in the US threatened by imports there is a growing number of high-paid, high skill jobs created by exports. Exports supported 7 million workers a decade ago; that number is approaching around 12 million today. And these new jobs — in aerospace, finance, information technology — pay 10 per cent more than the average American wage.

We especially need to inject some clarity — and facts — into the current debate over the outsourcing of services jobs. Over the next decade, the US is projected to create an average of more than 2 million new services jobs a year — compared to roughly 200,000 services jobs that will be outsourced.

I am well aware that this issue is the source of much anxiety in America today. Many Americans worry about the potential job losses that might arise from foreign competition in services sectors. But it’s worth remembering that concerns about the impact of foreign competition are not new. Many of the reservations people are expressing today are echoes of what we heard in the 1970s and 1980s. But people at that time didn’t fully appreciate the power of American ingenuity. Remarkable advances in technology and productivity laid the foundation for unprecedented job creation in the 1990s and there is no reason to doubt that this country, which has shown time and again such remarkable potential for competing in the global economy, will not soon embark again on such a burst of job-creation.
America's openness to service-sector trade — combined with the high skills of its workforce — will lead to more growth, stronger industries, and a shift towards higher value-added, higher-paying employment. Conversely, closing the door to service trade is a strategy for killing jobs, not saving them. Americans have never run from a challenge and have never been defeatist in the face of strong competition. Part of this challenge is to create the conditions for global growth and job creation here and around the world.

I believe Americans realize what is at stake. The process of opening to global trade can be disruptive, but they recognize that the US economy cannot grow and prosper any other way. They recognize the importance of finding global solutions to shared global problems.

Besides, what is the alternative to the WTO? Some argue that the world's only superpower need not be tied down by the constraints of the multilateral system. They claim that US sovereignty is compromised by international rules, and that multilateral institutions limit rather than expand US influence. Americans should be deeply sceptical about these claims. Almost none of the trade issues facing the US today are any easier to solve unilaterally, bilaterally or regionally. The reality is probably just the opposite. What sense does it make — for example — to negotiate e-commerce rules bilaterally? Who would be interested in disciplining agricultural subsidies in a regional agreement but not globally? How can bilateral deals — even dozens of them — come close to matching the economic impact of agreeing to global free trade among 146 countries? Bilateral and regional deals can sometimes be a complement to the multilateral system, but they can never be a substitute.

There is a bigger danger. By treating some countries preferentially, bilateral and regional deals exclude others — fragmenting global trade and distorting the world economy. Instead of liberalizing trade — and widening growth — they carve it up. Worse, they have a domino effect: bilateral deals inevitably beget more bilateral deals, as countries left outside are forced to seek their own preferential arrangements, or risk further marginalization. This is precisely what we see happening today. There are already over two hundred bilateral and regional agreements in existence, and each month we hear of a new or expanded deal. There is a basic contradiction in the assumption that bilateral approaches serve to strengthen the multilateral, rules-based system. Even when intended to spur free trade, they can ultimately risk undermining it.

This is in no one's interest, least of all the United States. America led in the creation of the multilateral system after 1945 precisely to avoid a return to hostile blocs — blocs that had done so much to fuel interwar instability and conflict. America's vision, in the words of Cordell Hull, was that “enduring peace and the welfare of nations was indissolubly connected with the friendliness, fairness and freedom of world trade”. Trade would bind nations together, making another war unthinkable. Non-discriminatory rules would prevent a return to preferential deals and closed alliances. A network of multilateral initiatives and organizations — the Marshal Plan, the IMF, the World Bank, and the GATT, now the WTO — would provide the institutional bedrock for the international rule of law, not power. Underpinning all this was the idea that freedom — free trade, free democracies, the free exchange of ideas — was essential to peace and prosperity, a more just world.

It is a vision that has emerged pre-eminent a half century later. Trade has expanded twenty-fold since 1950. Millions in Asia, Latin America, and Africa are being lifted out of poverty, and millions more have new hope for the future. All the great powers — the US, Europe, Japan, India, China and soon Russia — are part of a rules-based multilateral trading system, greatly increasing the chances for world prosperity and peace. There is a growing realization that — in our interdependent world — sovereignty is constrained, not by multilateral rules, but by the absence of rules.
All of these were America’s objectives. The US needs to be both clearer about the magnitude of what it has achieved, and more realistic about what it is trying to — and can — accomplish. Multilateralism can be slow, messy, and tortuous. But it is also indispensable to managing an increasingly integrated global economy. Multilateralism is based on the belief that all countries — even powerful countries like the United States — are made stronger and more secure through international co-operation and rules, and by working to strengthen one another from within a system, not outside of it. Multilateralism's greatest ideal is the ideal of negotiation, compromise, consensus, not coercion. As Churchill said of democracy, it is the worst possible system except for all the others.

I do not believe America's long-term economic interests have changed. Nor do I believe that America's vision for a just international order has become blurred. If anything, the American vision has been sharpened since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington; sharpened by the realization that there is now a new struggle globally between the forces of openness and modernity, and the forces of separatism and reaction. More than ever, America's interests lie in an open world economy resting on the foundation of a strong, rules-based multilateral system. More and more, America's growth and security are tied to the growth and security of the world economy as a whole. American leadership today is more — not less — important to our increasingly interconnected planet. A recent successful, and much needed, example is the multilateral agreement on intellectual property rights and access to medicines for poor countries, in which the US played a pivotal role.

It would be a tragic mistake if the Doha Round, which offers the world a once-in-a-generation opportunity to eliminate trade distortions, to strengthen trade rules, and open markets across the world, were allowed to founder. We need courage and the collective political will to ensure a balanced and equitable outcome.

What is the alternative? It is a fragmented world, with greater conflict and uncertainty. A world of the past, not the future — one that America turned away from after 1945, and that we should reject just as decisively today. America must lead. The multilateral trading system is too important to fail. The world depends on it. So does America.

Thank you.