Mike Moore

The lights at the World Trade Organization headquarters near Lake Geneva are on late these nights. The 135-nation organization, responsible for seeing that the export-import trade in each of its members is conducted fairly and freely, is preparing for one of its most important meetings, a gathering in Seattle, Nov. 30-Dec. 3, that could outline the foreign-trade rules of the next century.

The WTO, which changed its name from GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) in 1995, to reflect increased responsibilities and enforcement powers, is the lubricant that allows globalized foreign commerce to function. The Seattle meeting, bringing together trade ministers of its members, is expected to take up questions as varied as health hazards of genetically engineered food and French quotas on American movies and television programs. Increasingly, the profitability of a product outside its country of origin is a crucial element in its production. With trillions of dollars at stake in world trade and many interests involved, the Seattle discussions are expected to be heated and complex.

The man at the center of the WTO is its director-general, Mike Moore. He is the one responsible for finding, among all the opposing interests, a consensus that will carry trade forward, bringing new markets to developed countries and developing countries alike. The director-general’s skills should be those of negotiator rather than policy-maker--twisting arms or parrying threats as the need arises. Moore, a New Zealander who took office on Sept. 1, after a contentious search for a head of the agency, has both the lineman’s bulk and the political experience for the task. He was just 50 this year, but more than half his life has been spent in public service. His straight-talking but nonconfrontational style is already making a mark in Geneva.

Moore was born in Whakatane, New Zealand. He had jobs in meat packing, construction and social work before becoming, in 1972, the youngest person ever elected to the New Zealand Parliament. He had many ministerial posts when his Labor Party was in power: overseas trade and marketing, finance, foreign affairs and, briefly in 1990, prime minister. Moore’s wife of 24 years, Yvonne, is helping to ease the transition from the Pacific islands of New Zealand to the bustling international city of Geneva.

New Zealand is a small country whose prosperity depends on agricultural exports, primarily to its traditional markets in the European Community and the British Commonwealth. With this experience, Moore seemed ideal to untangle the WTO’s contentious agricultural issues and won the early support of Washington to head the agency for the next four-year term. However, developing countries had doubts, and a standoff resulted. Eventually, in a compromise, Moore was chosen for a three-year term, with the understanding that the next three years would go to Supachai Panitchpakdi of Thailand. Moore says this makes it easier for him to negotiate, since he doesn’t have to worry about reelection. Some, however, call him “demi-Moore” and say the compromise could produce stalling tactics by the Third World until Moore’s successor takes over. The normal period for a round of world trade talks is three years, but already some Asian trade ministers are predicting this round, called either the Seattle Round or the Millennium Round, will take longer.

The World Trade Organization, like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, was one of the postwar agencies created to remove economic irritants from international affairs. While critics say the agencies have served only to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, much economic development in the Third World has undoubtedly been due to them. With globalized trade looming as far more important than military alliances, the WTO has assumed increased weight in world affairs. And the staff has grown as well, from GATT’s original six to roughly 500 today.

Moore spoke to The Times in his smallish office overlooking the lake. His harried staff hurried through the halls dealing with yet another urgent matter in the preparations for Seattle. A delegation of Asian ambassadors to the WTO, Moore’s next appointment, waited in the anteroom while, downstairs, limousines brought more trade officials.

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Question: The idea of the Seattle conference is to prepare a world trade agenda for the 21st century. What do you think the main problems and issues are?

Answer: Well, firstly, what is the World Trade Organization? The WTO is an invention by men and women of vision during and after the war. This is Franklin Roosevelt, this is Harry Dexter White, this is Lord [John Maynard] Keynes. These are some of the best minds of the century sitting around saying, “We got ourselves in a Great Depression. We got ourselves in a Great War. How the hell do we stop this happening again?” They came out with the U.N., the IMF, the World Bank and a thing called the International Trade Organization. This is the last of these sisters that came into fruition, so we have now finally realized Franklin Roosevelt’s dream. It is based upon a lot of the American principles of justice and organization of markets. So what we want is to come out of Seattle with an organization that is looking at the issues of the next century.

Essentially, is the next century going to be managed by force, by coercion or by persuasion, by cooperation? In the next century, have we learned anything from the last hundred years? I think we’ve learned that we can’t have clean air in one country without clean air in the other; we’ve got to cooperate whether it’s an airline or a tax system or fisheries. We have to manage our resources in a sustainable way and manage our differences in a civil, legal way.

And so, I think, we want to come out in Seattle with a stronger, more relevant organization. And we’ve got to have a look at what the shape of the economy of the next century will be. That is why the Americans are pushing so hard on electronic commerce, and that is why issues of good governance, in regards to developing countries, are fundamental. There are a lot of modest things we can do, not very sexy. They might sound like jargon unless you think of the implications behind them. An agreement on transparency in government procurement is good for the taxpayer, it’s good for the consumer and it provides a base for good governance. . . .

What’s very good about this organization, as opposed to others, is that it’s member-driven, which means sovereign governments, which means everything that we do has to be ratified by the government or the parliament, that any country can leave in six months--it’s done by consensus. Therefore, nothing can go through unless the U.S. agrees. But, interestingly, nothing can go through unless all the countries agree. And we have a dispute system where we legally bind ourselves to the outcome. You know, that would be lovely if we could have that in the United Nations. . . .

Q: Do you expect the question of trade in genetically modified food to come up in Seattle?

A: Obviously it will be talked about, because people are concerned about it, politicians are very concerned. . . . However, we’ve got 6 billion people in the world to feed. Nobody in Africa is worried [about genetic engineering]. It varies from country to country. It’s a much bigger issue in Europe than it is in the United States. Nobody has died from genetically modified food yet, but a couple of dozen die every year in Europe from eating traditional cheeses.

Q: Some countries, particularly France, have promoted a limitation on imported cultural products, such as Hollywood movies, in the interest of maintaining cultural diversity. The French call it the “cultural exception” to free-trade rules. Do you expect this issue to emerge in Seattle?

A: Well, in terms of audiovisual, I can’t see much change there at all. But you’ve got to understand how other countries feel. I think here technology and history are our great friends. I come from a country where we’re trying to get a renaissance of our indigenous language, and many countries want to promote their own cultures, so there is a cultural unease here. But with technologies of a hundred TV channels, that kind of thing, I think we can get around that. We can have a dedicated system promoting indigenous language.

Q: Does that mean the European Union system of permitting quotas for locally made television product will remain?

A: Well, ideally, where it’s protectionist we should try and strike it down.

Q: What is the current status of negotiations to make China the 136th member of the WTO?

A: China has finished bilateral market-access negotiations with 13 WTO member governments, including the United States. But negotiations on market access remain with dozens of other countries.

Moreover, the legal framework for China’s accession must still be approved by a multilateral working party here in Geneva. As is the practice at the WTO, China’s accession will be agreed [to] by all WTO member governments through a process of consensus. I’m confident these remaining negotiations can be completed in a relatively short period of time.

Q: Will China have to open its many state-owned industries to foreign competition as a result of the trade treaty with the United States?

A: I have not been formally notified of all the details of the U.S.-China deal, but these were market-access negotiations, which very clearly means opening the market to greater access by foreign companies.

Q: Are stricter controls necessary on big multinational companies to prevent them from overwhelming local production?

A: The WTO is an organization which is based on rules. These are rules which are agreed through consensus of all 135 member governments. These rules are then approved by [national] parliaments and congresses. When you say stricter controls, what do you mean exactly?

You need to understand that the WTO is an intergovernmental organization. All negotiations are between governments. Of course, these policies affect corporations as well. . . . Sometimes governments take actions that are in favor of corporations but are not in conformity with the rules. Take the cases we have had regarding corporate subsidies. We have had one case in which a dispute settlement panel ruled that the U.S. Foreign Sales Corporation Act was a form of subsidy that was not in accordance with WTO rules. The European Union said that this “subsidy” amounted to over $2 billion a year for U.S. exporters. Are these controls on corporations or on government policies?

Q: There has been a lot of controversy over the proposed Multilateral Agreement on Investment. Critics say that, as drafted, it would dilute national sovereignty and give more power to multinationals. What do you think?

A: There are two things to be said about MAI. First, the MAI is dead. The governments involved in these negotiations killed it last year and drove a stake through its heart this spring. Second, this was a negotiation that took place in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a think tank based in Paris that is made up of 29 governments from the world’s richest countries.

The WTO is an organization of 135 governments, more than 100 of which represent either developing countries or economies in transition. At our first ministerial conference in Singapore, in 1996, some governments expressed the desire for global negotiations on trade and investment. But many others, especially in the developing world, thoroughly opposed the idea.

Ministers in Singapore agreed to set up a working group to examine the relationship between direct foreign investment and trade. This group has discussed the issue since January 1997. Some governments, including the European Union, Switzerland, Japan and Chile would like to see the investment issue taken up in the new negotiations that will be launched in Seattle. Other governments, however, such as India, Egypt, Malaysia and the United States, oppose starting such a process in Seattle.

I don’t know how the issue will be resolved, but the negotiating dynamic in an organization where 70% of the member governments are from developing countries or economies in transition is very different than at OECD. If an agreement on investment is ever [reached] at the WTO--and that is still uncertain--it would be a very different document than what came out of the OECD.

Q: In your first comments after you took office, you said, “This is the cynical ‘90s and not the optimistic ‘80s.” What did you mean by that?

A: I’m just turned 50, and I guess I reflect on my youth. We had heroes. We had Kennedy and Martin Luther King, we had civil rights and we could see progress. Every sentence began in the 1960s and 1970s, “If we can put a man on the moon” surely we can cure cancer; “If we can put a man on the moon” why should any child starve? There was more hope then. . . .

Also, trade negotiators are more cynical. We’ve been through a lot of this before. But that’s not the WTO’s fault. If you got rid of the WTO it wouldn’t make it better, it would make it worse. A lot of these problems are related to sovereign governments not behaving well. It’s not the WTO’s fault if some ratbag who’s the leader of a country decides to take all the money.

But that’s not to say we shouldn’t try harder. . . . In my day, at school we had pictures of warplanes on the walls; now it’s whales. Kids feel deeply about these things, and good for them, because I think they’re right. But kicking the WTO into orbit would not save us. *