CIAO DATE: 06/02

Democratizing U.S. Trade Policy

Summary

Storm clouds signaling trouble with American trade policy have been gathering for some time. In the early 1990s,Congress barely approved creation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and only strenuous efforts by the Clinton administration and the business community ensured passage of legislation creating the World Trade Organization (WTO). In the late 1990s, President Clinton twice failed to obtain congressional renewal of his trade-negotiating authority. The massive demonstrations during the meeting of the world's trade ministers in Seattle in 1999 reflected a widespread public unease with the impact of trade policy on a range of issues, from clear-cutting practices in the forests of Indonesia to the price of AIDS drugs in southern Africa. Today, public opinion polls consistently demonstrate that, although the American public supports freer trade in theory, it often has profound reservations about trade liberalization in practice. And the current global economic slowdown may only further polarize public opinion on trade issues.

It should come as no surprise that trade policymaking is now a topic of public debate. The American economy has been globalizing at a rapid pace. As the lives of more and more Americans are touched by the workings of the international economy, more and more people have a stake in the outcome of trade policy decisions. But, in many cases, their ability to influence those decisions has not kept pace.

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