Plan Seeks Unified State Export Policy

In an attempt to make sure that California’s “often distinctive” international trade interests are paid more attention by federal officials, Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy is proposing development of a state trade policy to help California industries remain competitive in the world marketplace.

As chairman of the California Commission for Economic Development, McCarthy will present a 65-page argument urging and outlining such a policy to the state’s World Trade Commission, which will meet at the Greater Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce here this afternoon. McCarthy and Gov. George Deukmejian are members of the trade commission. Copies of McCarthy’s proposal were made available to the press on Thursday.

McCarthy’s proposal also pushes for development of a framework for coordinating the trade-related activities of state government agencies. Spokesmen for the lieutenant governor said such an effort is unique on the state level, although some states, including California, have export support programs and overseas trade offices.

“For the most part . . . public debate has tended to focus on what the federal government should do in response to what is commonly perceived as a foreign threat to America’s economic autonomy, our standard of living and, ultimately, our national security,” the proposal says. “By contrast, relatively little systematic consideration has been given to development--to its full potential--of the role individual states can play in promoting the international competitiveness of their own industries.”

California is the nation’s foremost international trading state with more than $100 billion worth of goods--15% of total U.S. trade--passing through the state’s air terminals and seaports or over the Mexican border. But representatives of the state’s agricultural, high-technology and other industries have “expressed frustration, if not outright exasperation, with the federal government’s proclivity for slighting the legitimate interests of this state’s world trade community,” according to the report.

For example, it said, witnesses at a special California World Trade Commission hearing in July complained that federal officials responsible for agricultural trade policy think chiefly in terms of the needs of Midwestern grain farmers and far less about California’s specialty farm exports.

Opposes Protectionism

The report also argues against protectionist legislation pending in Congress and says that California’s high-technology and agricultural exporters would be “early casualties in a trade war touched off by erection of protectionist barriers.”

Changes that are needed to accommodate California interests, the report said, include streamlining federal controls on high-technology exports, improving and expanding protection for intellectual property rights, revising antitrust laws to reflect the more international scope of competition and alleviating the shortage of U.S. Customs agents on the West Coast.

It recommends that the head of the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency be made responsible for directing and coordinating activities of the various state agencies in the field of international trade and investment and that the agency be reorganized and renamed to reflect the new role.