General Agreement On Tariffs & Trade Research Articles

GATT TRADE LEGISLATION Big win for U.S. chemical industry

Congress' approval last week by overwhelming votes in the Senate and the House of Representatives of legislation implementing the Uruguay round of the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (GATT) is a big win for the U.S. chemical Chemical makers strongly promoted passage of the treaty, which takes effect Jan. 1, 1995. culmination of seven years of negotiations will result in lower tariffs and more open markets, stresses Fred Webber, president and chief financial officer of the Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA). The U.S. chemical industry will be one of the big beneficiaries, Webber explains. We think GATT rules will add another $15 billion in exports over the next decade. That should create thousands of high-paying jobs in the U.S. chemical industry. Moreover, the treaty will reduce nontariff barriers to trade and for the first time allow U.S. companies to compete on a free and fair footing. GATT also will provide better international protection ...

Congress Takes First Steps Toward Implementating GATT Trade Pact

International negotiations on the Uruguay round of the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (GATT) ended last December, but Congress is still struggling with legislation it must enact to make the trade pact legal in the U.S. This implementing legislation, which will be formally submitted by President Bill Clinton once Congress has taken a first pass at it, is vital to the final success of the treaty. As a first step toward passing the implementing legislation, the House Ways & Means Committee's Subcommittee on Trade has had an informal markup of a bill that covers many of the required legal changes. Late last month, acting subcommittee chairman Robert T. Matsui (D.-Calif.) proposed a set of amendments to the Administration's rough proposals that cover issues ranging from intellectual property to Brazilian nonrubber footwear. The approval of a bill by the trade subcommittee is just the first of a number of exchanges between Congress and the White ...

U.S. high-tech leaders laud GATT R&D clauses

The final draft of the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (GATT), approved last December in Geneva and top-heavy with impenetrable trade jargon, has begun moving through the Senate Finance Committee. Last week, a committee hearing aired reactions to the pact's once-controversial R&D provisions. Those provisions had set off last-minute fireworks during the December trade talks (C&EN, Jan. 3, page 13). After frantic negotiations in Geneva, the U.S. delegation succeeded in convincing the other negotiators that it didn't really want what it had apparently supported for many months: limits on government support for research with industry or for research tied to industrial needs in government or academic labs. The whole caper underscored the perceptual mismatch between trade and technology policymakers in both the Clinton and Bush Administrations. Judging by testimony at the hearing from former National Science Foundation director Erich Bloch and from Mary L. Good, undersecretary for technology at the Commerc...

Chemical Industry Has Misgivings About Uruguay Round Trade Pact

Yogi Berra was right when he said that ain't over till it's over. Negotiations in the Uruguay round of world trade talks formally ended in Geneva on Dec. 15 after more than seven years of contentious, often bitter, bargaining. But it ain't over yet, especially for the U.S. chemical industry. Even after Peter D. Sutherland, director general of the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (GATT), sounded the closing gavel on negotiations that have spawned the most comprehensive trade pact in GATT history, several major issues stiil remain unresolved. They may not be completely settled until mid-February, perhaps even later. One of them smacks at the very heart of the chemical industry's own trade objectives. And it is critical to the industry's continued support of the Uruguay round as the Clinton Administration tries to win Congressional approval for the trade deal. That issue is the tariff cuts on chemicals that are—or will be—prescribed in ...

WORLD TRADE TALKS

Chemical industry trade experts are generally pleased with the market access package, including tariff cuts, that negotiators unveiled last week in Tokyo at the G-7 (Group of Seven) summit meeting of industrialized nations. Negotiators represented the world's top four trade entities—the U.S., Canada, Japan, and the European Community (EC). K. James O'Connor Jr., associate director of international trade for the Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA), says he is now optimistic that the sevenyear-old Uruguay round of multilateral trade negotiations can be completed by the Dec. 15 deadline required under U.S. fast track legislation. Without the G-7 market access package, says O'Connor, the Uruguay round would have been dead. Many trade experts share his opinion. Negotiations now can resume in Geneva under the auspices of the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (GATT). President Bill Clinton calls the market access deal a breakthrough, freeing the logjam in the Uruguay round, and promising more jobs an...

Chemical sector backs fast track for trade pact

Trade experts in the U.S. chemical industry are heartily welcoming President Bill Clinton's decision to seek extension of the so-called fast-track process to pursue the Uruguay round of multilateral trade negotiations on expansion of the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (GATT). Under fast track, Congress must approve or reject any trade agreement that comes out of the negotiations. It cannot offer any amendments. Current fast-track authority for the Uruguay round doesn't expire until June 1. However, the Administration would have had to submit a trade pact to Congress back in March to give legislators enough time to digest it. For all practical purposes, the current fast-track authority is dead. Under Clinton's proposal, negotiators in the U.S. trade representative's office would have until Dec. 15 to wrap up the Uruguay round trade talks, which are being held in Geneva under GATT auspices. Congress then would have until April 15, 1994, to act on the agreement. ...

Chemical industry backs trade pact overall

The U.S. chemical industry is expressing support, with some reservations, for global trade rules proposed last month by Arthur Dunkel, director general of General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (GATT). The rules are contained in a 436-page draft text drawn up in an attempt to break a deadlock in five-year-old Uruguay round of multilateral trade negotiations (C&EN, Jan. 6, page 6). However, industry's final judgment will depend on outcome of still unfinished negotiations on market access rules. It also seeks improvement in such areas as antidumping, subsidies, and intellectual property protection. In a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Carla A. Hills, chemical industry trade spokesman W. H. Clark says the overall evaluation of Dunkel text is favorable. Clark heads Office of Chemical Industry Trade Adviser (OCITA), a coalition of industry trade associations, and is chairman and chief executive officer of Nalco Chemical. OCITA especially likes a proposal in ...

Canada may raise tariffs on U.S. chemicals

Chemicals and plastics dominate a list of U.S. products that Canada is considering for possible tariff increases. The move is in retaliation for a U.S. tax on imported oil that is used to raise revenue for the Superfund program. A dispute settlement panel of the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (GATT), the international body that sets the rules for most world trade, declared in 1987 that the controversial U.S. import tax was discriminatory because it hit imported products harder than it did domestic products. The Superfund tax on domestic oil, for instance, is 8.2 cents per barrel; on imported oil it is 11.7 cents. There also is a Superfund tax on imported petrochemical feedstock, but it is the same as that on domestic feedstock. So far, the U.S. hasn't changed its tax on imports. The Senate Finance Committee held hearings last month on the Superfund tax problem. Meanwhile, the ...

Chemical industry wary of tariff concessions

Recently the new omnibus trade bill and the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement have captured the spotlight on the world trade stage. Hidden in the shadows has been the Uruguay round of multilateral trade negotiations. The Uruguay round, the eighth such round of trade negotiations held under the auspices of the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (GATT), was formally launched at a GATT ministerial meeting in Punta del Este, Uruguay, in 1986. It is scheduled to continue through 1990. The advisers who shape U.S. chemical industry trade policy, however, certainly haven't forgotten about the Uruguay trade talks. Realizing that GATT will hold a midterm review of the talks' progress and prospects in Montreal next month, Dexter F. Baker, chairman and chief executive officer of Air Products & Chemicals and head of the Office of the Chemical Industry Trade Adviser (OCITA), recently shot off a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Clayton K. Yeutter reemphasizing the industry's ...

Chemical associations agree on trade issues

The major U.S. and Western European chemical industry associations have agreed on a variety of important trade policy issues and have set their ideas before negotiators at the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (GATT) talks in Geneva. The agreement marks the first time that the European chemical industry federation (CEFIC), the Chemical Manufacturers Association, and the Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association have presented their concerns in unison. In the past, says SOCMA president Ronald Lang, we had always been at each others' throats. The associations say that whereas tariff cutting may not be the primary emphasis at GATT, places exist where reductions in chemical tariffs are appropriate. But reductions in chemical tariffs should not be offered in exchange for concessions in nonchemical sectors, they say. Another issue on which accord was reached involved improved protection of intellectual property. Negotiators should seek binding commitments not to allow inadequate intellectual ...

Push for Legislation To Toughen U.S. Trade Laws Gains Momentum

Despite a sharply weaker dollar, which should have helped the U.S. trade picture by now, the mammoth U.S. trade deficit still weighs heavy on official Washington. If anything, international trade is more of a political hot potato this year than it was last year, when Congress tried but failed to squeeze out a new trade bill. As a result, the push to get major trade legislation through Congress and onto the President's desk this year is picking up momentum. Certainly the country's trade problems are the major reason for this legislative flurry. But not the only one. The Uruguay round of multilateral trade talks already has been launched and negotiations soon will be getting under way in Geneva. The Administration needs legislative authority to strike bargains in these trade talks, which are being held under the auspices of the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (GATT). The prospects for trade legislation reaching the President's desk, ...

Balance of Payments and Related Issues in the Uruguay Round of Trade Negotiations

Little attention has been paid to the balance of payments provisions of the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (GATT), despite the fact that they directly influence the trade policies of the developing countries. This article suggests that there is a need to reconsider these provisions in the context of the ongoing Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations. The article traces the historical evolution of GATT practices on trade restrictions for balance of payments purposes. With the general introduction of more flexible exchange rate arrangements, the original rationale for temporary barriers to safeguard a country's external financial position appears to have lost its force. Recent theoretical and empirical work has demonstrated that neutral or export promoting trade strategies are more effective for development than the import substitution frequently advocated by economists in the 1950s and 1960s. The current debt problems of developing countries strengthen the argument for a relatively open trade and payments regime to attain balance of payments viability. The article suggests that stronger international discipline over trade restrictions for balance of payments purposes would contribute to and presuppose other necessary improvements in the multilateral trading system which are already on the agenda of the Uruguay Round.

Chemical Industry Prepares for New Round of Trade Negotiations

Now that the elections are over and President will be returning to the White House for another four years, trade officials in the chemical industry are wondering if they will have to start preparing for a Reagan of multilateral trade negotiations. Such a possibility is already being actively considered in several chemical industry forums—among them the Chemical Manufacturers Association, Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association, and Office of the Chemical Industry Trade Advisor. It's no secret that the Administration is pushing for a new round of multilateral trade negotiations (MTN) that would be held under the auspices of the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (GATT). The last major round of GATT trade discussions—the Tokyo round—ended five years ago. Results of the Tokyo round, which dragged on from 1973 to 1979, are still being implemented. Administration trade officials, nevertheless, think it's time to start looking ahead to a new round of trade ...

The Quid and the Quo

Abstract In November 1982 the 35-year-old General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (GATT) gathered in Geneva in an effort to avert the threat of a general trade war between the US, the EEC and Japan. Frederick F Clairmonte looks at the historical background to the present conflicts over world trade and the efforts by governments and transnational capital to solve a crisis that they can no longer conceal.