Democratic Group Urges Shift In U.S. Trade Policy

(Washington Post – Doug Palmer)

The next U.S. president should shift American trade policy away from an emphasis on bilateral free trade agreements to bigger accords with the world’s leading economic powers, a new report from a centrist Democratic policy group said on Wednesday.

“The United States needs a new trade and financial strategy that reflects America’s commercial interests,” the Democratic Leadership Council said in “Winning in the World Economy (II),” a follow-up to the group’s 1985 policy paper on the same topic. “It should shift away from the FTA-focused approach of the Bush era, and focus instead on multilateral policy, targeting the largest markets and the growth sectors likely to lead America’s economy in the 2010s and the 2020s,” the DLC said.

The report comes as many supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama are calling for a moratorium on new trade deals until what they view as problems with previous trade agreements are fixed. Groups such as the AFL-CIO labor federation, the Teamsters union and the United Steelworkers, as well as many small and medium-sized manufacturers, blame trade agreements for millions of lost U.S. manufacturing jobs.

Obama has promised to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement to include stronger labor and environmental provisions, and has opposed Bush administration free trade deals with Colombia, South Korea and Panama. However, the first-term Illinois senator has not articulated a clear outline of what types of trade agreements he would pursue if elected president.
In contrast, Republican presidential candidate John McCain has warned of the risks of reopening NAFTA and embraced the Bush administration’s bilateral free trade agenda. Read the complete article.