Trade Experts Research Articles

FREE TRADE SIDE ACCORDS

Initial reaction by chemical industry to North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) side accords on environmental and labor issues is relatively muted. Industry trade experts have yet to see enough details to evaluate fully accords, which were achieved only after an impasse-breaking telephone marathon among top-level trade negotiators in Canada, Mexico, and U.S.—finally bringing to an end five months of grueling negotiations. But industry trade experts doubt that any defects in side accords will weaken their strong support for NAFTA. Dawn Shiley, assistant government relations manager for Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association, does not expect to receive any written details until end of month. And the devil can be in details, she says. Nevertheless, she thinks, we're going to be okay with them. Owen A. Kean, a spokesman for Chemical Manufacturers Association, says CMA's trade experts also are reluctant to assess impact of ...

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. ...

Down in the Dumps: Administration of the Unfair Trade Laws

During the past decade the administration of the U.S. trade laws has become increasingly controversial. Trade experts have long questioned the methods used by the Department of Commerce, International Trade Administration, which is responsible for calculating dumping and countervailable subsidy rates on imported goods. This study is the first to bring together attorneys and economists who are experts in the area of trade to examine and criticize the Department's practices and recommend ways to improve them. The critical issue addressed in this book is how trade laws should be applied so that the results are consistent with both economic theory and business behaviour and with the obligations of the US and other countries under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Contending that the laws are administered in a way that tilts toward protectionism, Down in the Dumps suggests changes that would not require fundamental changes in law, but rather changes in the way it is administered. Chapters include Richard Boltuck and Robert Litan on an overview of the issues; Tracy Murray on dumping margins methodology; David Palmeter, Joseph Francoise and Jeffrey Anspacher on calculating subsidy rates; David Palmeter on the fairness of administrative procedures; and Robert Baldwin and Michael Moore on the political economy behind the administration of the trade remedy laws. The concluding chapter, by Terence Stewart, criticizes several of the earlier chapters from a persepctive that is generally supportive of current administrative practices.

A Knowledge Based Model of Commodity Trading Expertise

A Knowledge Based Model of Commodity Trading Expertise

Chemical Industry Hones Policy For Upcoming Trade Negotiations

It now appears certain that U.S. trade officials will be cramming for a new round of multilateral trade negotiations scheduled to be held next year under the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (C&EN, Oct. 7, page 12). It also appears certain that the close-knit cadre of trade experts that mold chemical industry trade policy will find their schedules busier than ever. In the major trade associations, such as the Chemical Manufacturers Association and the Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association, members of the international trade committees are busy formulating a trade policy for their respective boards to approve. Approved trade policy statements probably won't be long in coming. The industry's trade experts haven't been sitting on their hands waiting for GATT delegates to make their move in Geneva. Out of their preparatory work, one thing comes through loud and clear. The focal point of an emerging chemical industry trade policy is—and has been—multilateral trade negotiations, ...

Harmful chemicals in trade expert meeting reconvened

Harmful chemicals in trade expert meeting reconvened

The relationship between size, strength and task demands.

Abstract To study the relationship between size, strength and task demands, an intensive task-analysis approach was adopted for three physically demanding military occupations (trades). The methodology used was: (i) survey trade experts (incumbents) to obtain information on the physically demanding aspects (tasks) of the trade; (ii) quantify representative trade tasks; (iii) relate operator (male and female) performance on these representative trade tasks with performance on a selected battery of physical tests from the literature; (iv) determine valid job selection standards from predictive tests. The results of the study demonstrated that static strength and anthropometric measurements were successful in predicting work performance in the trade tasks.

Modernizing Training in the Naval Shipyards

The Navy's Department of the Naval Sea Systems Command has launched an ambitious program to modernize the training of its shipyard civilian workers. The Instructional Systems Development (ISD) approach has been adopted to design, develop and evaluate effective and cost-efficient training of shipyard skilled-trades. Using the expertise of instructional technologists, trade experts, technical writers and psychometricians, the program is expected to eliminate deficiencies of current shipyard training and reduce its costs.

Industry trade advisory program revamped

The chemical industry is marshaling its trade expertise to participate in a revised and restructured trade consultation program with government. For a few old trade hands in the industry, the new program will seem like business as usual. But not quite. This small, hard core of trade-wise chemical executives served in a similar industry-to-government trade advisory program, set up by the Trade Act of 1974, during the hectic days of the Tokyo round of multilateral trade negotiations. Despite the emphasis placed on nontariff barriers in these negotiations, the big issues for the chemical industry in those days were tariffs and the elimination of American Selling Price. Now, however, the issues that chemical industry trade experts will have to grapple with will be different and much more diverse. And the trade experts will have to do it within a restructured advisory system. At the heart of the new system, as they were previously, will be the ...

Socialist Countries in GATT

The present stage in East-West economic cooperation has reached the point at which four socialist countries have become members of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and were thus admitted to the world trade system on the basis of non-discrimination and the most-favored-nation clause. Of those, Poland, Romania and Hungary are also members of the Council for Mutual Economic Aid (CMEA, Comecon) while Yugoslavia-not a formal member-is extensively engaged in the socialist system of economic cooperation. Trade between socialist and free economy countries has a long history, and foreign trade experts are quite familiar with socialist foreign trade techniques.1 Free world exporters and importers in a number of countries represent today an impressive business milieu professionally engaged in East-West economic cooperation. It is also true however that East-West trade operations are, compared with world trade volume, relatively insignificant. Even today, the foreign trade policy of the socialist countries seems to be directed at preventing their full integration into the world economic system. The main reason seems to be that the function of foreign trade is primarily to obtain financing for transforming the national economies of these countries into industrial societies, according to programs fixed in their long term economic plans.2 While this remains true today, it is also true that joining GATT was connected with an important change of mind as regards the function of foreign trade in socialist economies. The Communique on the 25th session of the CMEA (6 July 1971) stated that: The session declared that any country that is not a Comecon member can fully or partially participate in the implementation of the measures envisaged by the comprehensive program. The CMEA member countries will continue to develop economic, scientific and technical ties with

Chemical industry girds to defend exports

Trade experts are starting to prepare for a major trade confrontation for the chemical industry. The problem lies in Europe where chemical and political leaders are starting to voice strong concern about the large volumes of low-priced US chemical exports that are flowing into Europe, particularly petrochemicals. These complaints closely follow, in time and substance, the arguments from European fiber producers who voiced complaints against cheap exports of US synthetic fibers, subsidized by government price controls on oil. Petrochemical producers are gathering information to make a rebuttal to the European's charges, since it seems likely the attention will be focused on petrochemicals instead of downstream products such as fibers. At least part of the European problem seems to lie in Europe. Unlike the US petrochemical industry, European producers have been - and still are - handcuffed to naphtha. With OPEC exporting heavier crudes, European refineries were caught with inadequate conversion capacity. Prices for naphtha nearly tripled from mid-1978 to mid-1979. While other factors contribute to lower costs for US chemical production, the basic complaint of the Europeans is that government price controls amount to an unfair subsidy. 3 figures. (SAC)

Fate of trade talks rests with congress

The handful of chemical industry trade experts that function both inside and outside the government's trade advisory process have their work cut out for them. Words like crucial and vital are being bandied about to describe the next few months as far as the U.S. trade policy is concerned. Many of these trade experts will be spending as much time in Washington, D.C., as they will in their home offices. Since Jan. 4, many of them have been doing just that. It was then that President Carter formally notified Congress of his intent to enter into a package of multilateral trade agreements. His notice signaled the start of what undoubtedly will be a hectic 90 days (perhaps more) for everyone connected with trade policy. For the chemical industry's own experts, it will mean continuing to monitor some important unfinished business at the trade talks in Geneva. It will mean being alert to the legislation that ...

International Relations and Sociology

FROM almost any point of departure one can in a few moments find one's self in the thick of an argument about the essential function and proper attitude of the sociologist. The present topic is no exception. The dark prophecies which begin, We are living in an age when . and conclude with a world that ends not with a whimper but with a bang, might easily pose for us the problem of what we are doing to save the world from imminent disaster. The answer would not be inspiriting. Neither does the world turn to our expertness nor do we urgently proffer our accumulated wisdom. Nowhere is the sociologist as sociologist in demand; geographers, international trade experts, nutrition and agriculture specialists, even people who know something about population, may be in the retinue of technical advisers, on tap but not on top-but not the sociologist. Even an Economic and Social Council turns out to be composed chiefly of representatives of the points of view of economics and social work, not understanding each other very well, I may add, and badly needing the mediation of some of our guild. The case for our inclusion, both for the world's sake and our own, is strong. To hold the Key to Salvation and not to use it is hardly defensible. Now to hear the enthusiasts talk, mutual understanding, to be achieved through the comparative ethnology of civilized peoples, and the adjustment to one another of what are after all variants of the same great culture, is such a key. To speak less extravagantly, the cultural or sociological approach has a contribution to make to the composing of deep-lying differences between great power or international blocs. If there is still a ring of false Utopian-