WTO Infiltrates Campaign 2000

The World Trade Organization--along with the protests rocking its Seattle meeting this week--has found its way into Campaign 2000, although in a rather nuanced fashion. But unlike such issues as health care and taxes, free trade is less of a divisive issue among the major candidates.

Democrats Al Gore and Bill Bradley have staked out positions that are “virtually indistinguishable” on trade, said Robert Borosage, director of the progressive research and policy group Campaign for America’s Future.

“[George W.] Bush has decided to distinguish himself to the free-trade right of Gore and Bradley, saying he’d be more for free trade than the Clinton administration and be more aggressive,” Borosage said from Seattle.

Still, as the tear gas flowed Wednesday in Seattle, the candidates spoke up from across the country.

Texas Gov. Bush reaffirmed his support for free trade and the WTO as he campaigned in Iowa, and he questioned whether Vice President Gore can stand up to labor unions--longtime Democratic supporters who have opposed free trade.

“I’m not sure what [Gore’s] positions are,” Bush said. “It will be interesting to see how he reacts to [the] pressure of the AFL-CIO.”

Gore also supports the WTO, which was formed with the backing of the Clinton administration. On Wednesday he broke his long silence on free trade while campaigning in Iowa.

“I support free and fair trade,” Gore told reporters. “And along with the president I have argued that labor rights and environmental protections should be a more important part of the negotiating process and that we should integrate these goals into future trade agreements.”

He said he hoped the WTO meeting would lead to “some progress in opening up markets for our agriculture products and securing a free-trade zone for the Internet.”

In a previously planned speech Monday, Bradley, a former senator, said he supports free trade. He argued that the concerns of labor and environmental groups should be considered, but they should not interrupt global business.

U.S. policy, he said in Massachusetts, should “try to mitigate the negative aspects of international trade, while keeping in full view the overwhelmingly greater positive aspects of international trade.”

Buchanan, a longtime detractor of free trade who recently bolted the GOP for the Reform Party, threw in his lot with the protesters this week and called the Geneva-based WTO an “embryonic monster.”

On the one hand, he said from Seattle, the violence by a few demonstrators is “deplorable.” On the other, he said, he was working with labor and environmental groups to bring down the WTO.

“If there is one message we are trying to get across, it is that we stand against global government and an undemocratic new world order,” Buchanan said. “We Americans alone should decide issues of vital significance to our destiny and our national security.”

In Washington, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told the Republican Jewish Coalition that he supports the controversial inclusion of China into the global trade body, along with Taiwan.

Campaigning in Michigan, publisher Steve Forbes also pushed for Taiwan’s inclusion in the WTO--but said it should happen before China is allowed in.

“It is time for our government to reward freedom and democracy--not force and demagoguery,” Forbes said.

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Times staff writer James Gerstenzang and Times wire services contributed to this report.

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Soaring World Trade

Efforts to promote global trading, launched during the mid-1940s, have paid off tremendously in terms of worldwide commerce. But protesters claim the price has been too high--from environmental sacrifices to loss of jobs. Exports by all countries in the world, in billions of dollars:

World trade highlights

1944: Bretton Woods, N.H., summit creates World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Major currencies pegged to dollar.

1948: Adoption of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), resulting in 4,500 tariff concessions affecting about one-fifth of the world’s trade.

1973: Free-floating exchange rate adopted by all major countries. Arab oil embargo triggers price hikes and a worldwide recession.

1979: Second oil shock, soaring interest rates and inflation trigger U.S. recession and broad 1980s restructuring of U.S. industry.

1985: Plaza Accord weakens strong dollar to boost U.S. exports. Rising yen leads to Japanese “bubble” economy.

1986: World trade officials launch talks in Uruguay to improve GATT rules and liberalize trade.

1989: Fall of Berlin Wall spreads free markets.

1990: Japanese bubble deflates; decade-long recession follows.

1993: U.S., Canada, Mexico sign North American Free Trade Agreement.

1994: Uruguay Round ends; World Trade Organization created. Mexico devalues peso, sparking regional meltdown.

1997: Thailand devalues currency, triggering Asian economic crisis and depressing trade.

1999: European Union adopts 11-nation common currency, the euro.