New Trade Deals Shift APEC Dynamic for U.S.
WASHINGTON 鈥斅燭he approval of three key trade agreements is a coup for the United States as it prepares to host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Honolulu next month.
That was the message from a group of APEC and U.S. trade officials who addressed about 135 business and government leaders at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday evening. President Barack Obama last week signed into law with Colombia, South Korea and Panama.
“We had a big week in terms of advancing our trade policy last week, from start to finish,” said U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, Obama’s top advisor, negotiator and spokesman on trade issues. “I don’t know that any of us would believe it if you told us that in nine days, the president could send to Congress three trade agreements, and in nine days those agreements would be passed by both houses.”
Kirk said that the trade deals moved through Congress so quickly because those who drafted them took two years to get them right. But Kirk and other panel members said that the fact that these trade agreements advanced just before APEC will change the way the United States interacts with the 20 other global economies represented at the conference.
“I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve sat with various forums and trade ministers around the world, and they have always said, ‘We want America to lead,” said FedEx Express Chief Operating Office Michael Ducker, who serves as vice chair of the APEC Host Committee. “There are three things that are hugely important about this: No. 1, it sends a positive signal to our APEC partners that we’re in the game and we’re in the game in a big way. These weren’t small agreements.”
Ducker said he believes that the passage of the trade deals adds “new energy” to the APEC discussion.
“Were these deals still languishing, that would be all the discussion,” Ducker said. “Now you can move to a future vision of what’s next. What can we do now? Because we’ve gotten that behind us.”
President and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Thomas Donohue put it more bluntly: “We don’t have to take that burden to APEC. If we went down to APEC not having done these agreements … we would have had a hard time driving credibility in what we’re trying to say.”
Kirk, the country’s trade ambassador, said that the trade agreements will ultimately enable world leaders to practically advance discussions of modernizing global trade.
“Our goal was not just to pass three trade agreements,” Kirk said. “Our goal was to set the table for a much more robust and dynamic trade platform for America… Our future, as a country, is largely going to be linked to our ability to sell more of what we make, what we innovate, what we create in this country to these new markets around the world.”
