U.S. Submits a New Offer in Global Banking Negotiations
The Clinton administration on Monday held out the prospect of expanded opportunities in the United States for foreign banks, securities firms and insurance companies in an effort to achieve similar benefits for American companies in global markets.
The administration submitted a new proposal to the World Trade Organization in Geneva, where negotiators are trying to achieve a global trade agreement covering the $40-trillion-plus financial services market by a Dec. 12 deadline.
Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin and U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky described the proposal as a good-faith offer to open the vast American financial services market to foreign competition in exchange for other nations extending the same market access to U.S. firms.
“With this offer, we are underscoring that the United States is fully committed to reaching a successful conclusion to the WTO negotiations,” Rubin and Barshefsky said in a joint statement. “Now it is up to our trading partners to demonstrate their commitments by putting forward significantly improved offers in the weeks ahead.”
Two years ago, the U.S. stunned other countries when it walked away from a financial services deal on the grounds that the offers from other countries, primarily emerging nations in Asia, were not sufficient.
The administration allowed foreign banks, insurance and securities firms already doing business in the United States to continue operating, but it barred additional foreign operations until a financial services agreement was reached.
The U.S. market is substantial, with assets in American banks, securities firms and other institutions totaling $26.5 trillion. The administration was under heavy pressure from American financial institutions to pull out of the talks two years ago because of insufficient offers from other nations.
After the United States balked at signing a financial services agreement in June 1995, the European Union took the lead in pushing forward with an interim market-opening proposal that is to expire in December.
American banks, securities firms and insurance companies, considered world leaders in offering innovative new products, have the most to gain from a permanent agreement covering trade in financial services.
But the U.S. industry has insisted that any pact must include a significant reduction in the trade barriers American firms face overseas in exchange for a further opening of the huge American market.
