Amid the tech talk, a free-trade message
While the consumer electronics world is watching Las Vegas this week, many manufacturers are also keeping an eye on foreign markets where they can build and sell their latest gadgets.
The head of the trade group behind the International Consumer Electronics Show used the stage to drive home a political message Monday: Foreign trade is key to the growth of the industry and the overall health of the U.S. economy.
Gary Shapiro, president and chief executive of the Consumer Electronics Assn., said that without trade deals to lower the costs of making and selling products in new foreign markets, technology companies won’t be able to continue producing the stream of innovative and increasingly affordable gizmos flowing into American homes.
Electronics companies have gone on the offensive as pending trade pacts with South Korea, Colombia and Panama languish in Congress because of concerns about U.S. job losses. Some presidential candidates, including Republican Mike Huckabee and Democrat John Edwards, have criticized free trade policies.
“We see isolationism gaining favor from those who want a wall around this nation,” Shapiro said in his keynote address at CES. “This is a dangerous and disturbing trend. If followed it will lead to economic disaster.”
Critics say that they are not calling for isolationist policies but that trade deals need to include environmental standards to protect the planet as well as labor rules to prevent companies from replacing U.S. jobs by exploiting foreign workers.
Shapiro has made trade a focus of this year’s show. He joined with U.S. Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab in a conference call with reporters to tout its importance.
“If there were ever an industry where you see the very clear convergence of the benefits of free trade, free markets and the protection of intellectual property, this is it,” said Schwab, who is in Las Vegas lobbying for President Bush’s trade agenda.
The events build on the trade group’s campaign to push Congress to approve trade deals negotiated by the administration that would lower tariffs and other barriers for U.S. companies in foreign countries.
Congress approved a free trade agreement with Peru in December, but the other deals have stalled on job worries. Complicating the issue are political matters specific to each country, such as the slayings of union members in Colombia and a South Korean ban on U.S. beef because of fears of mad cow disease.
South Korea, Peru, Colombia and Panama are growing markets for U.S. consumer electronics, but the last three are relatively small.
Exports to Colombia, for example, rose 44% from 2000 to 2006 but amounted to just $23 million in sales in 2006, according to the CEA. That compares with $145 billion in 2006 sales in the United States.
Lori Wallach, director of the Global Trade Watch program for Public Citizen, a watchdog group, said consumer electronics makers want the trade deals only because of provisions that make it easier to open factories overseas and outsource U.S. jobs.
Schwab agreed that those foreign investment provisions were among the benefits of the trade deals but dismissed criticism by saying the ability to move manufacturing operations is important in global competition.
“There are a lot of U.S. companies that use these free trade agreements to enhance their competitive position vis-a-vis China,” she said.
The trade pacts are only part of the industry group’s agenda. With Democrats the majority in Congress, the group is trying to head off any attempt to pass legislation that would prevent U.S. jobs from moving overseas.
On Monday, Shapiro joined with the heads of the Motion Picture Assn. of America and the Recording Industry Assn. of America -- organizations that often are at odds with electronics makers over technology that enables the sharing of digital video and music -- in writing congressional leaders to urge passage of the trade deals.
In November, Bush urged U.S. businesses to lobby Congress to approve the deals.
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