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| PROTEST AND POLICY | |
 December 1, 1999 
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MARGARET WARNER: Now what's going on inside the WTO meeting. Once again we're joined from Seattle by David Sanger, economic correspondent for the New York Times. Welcome back, David. DAVID SANGER, The New York Times: Hi, Margaret, how are you?
DAVID SANGER: That's right. I'm in the convention center where the meetings themselves are taking place upstairs. |
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| Using protests purposefully | ||||||||||||||||||||
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MARGARET WARNER: So are things back on track today at the meeting?
MARGARET WARNER: Now are the protests that we saw yesterday having any impact on the substantive work of the meeting? DAVID SANGER: It's a complex question, and we probably won't know the answer to that until we see on Friday the actual agenda for the negotiations that they agree upon. But I can tell you this -- it's fairly clear that many sides are trying to use what happened on the street here to reinforce their negotiating positions upstairs. For example, the French have taken the protests that were against genetically modified foods, and said, "See, even the people in your own country believe that U.S. regulations should not force these kinds of foods on European consumers." The Americans, in contrast, have taken the labor protest and said, "See, this is a deeply emotional issue. It's time for the World Trade Organization to include core labor standards in their mandate in trade negotiations."
DAVID SANGER: Well, I think that some of the American negotiators probably
wish the president hadn't gone quite as far as he did in that interview.
The fear that some of the developing countries have is that the real
U.S. agenda is to use this working group to get trade sanctions set
in place as part of these agreements. So, for example, if you could
prove that India or Sri Lanka or some other country had poor working
conditions or was using child labor in their factories, you could take
a trade sanction against their products as they come into the United
States. But I'm not sure that the president's comments necessarily helped
his MARGARET WARNER: Speaking of suspecting U.S. motives, you had an interesting little line in your article this morning that you talked to at least one developing country ambassador who thought even the protests might have been coordinated or part of a U.S. administration -- I don't think he used the word "plot," but explain that. DAVID SANGER: Well, one of the wonderful things about WTO meetings is that they create conspiracy theories all over the place. The people on the street believe the WTO is a conspiracy to create world government. The diplomats who are upstairs saw the fine hand of the United States in this. They thought that some of the demonstrations -- or at least a few officials said they thought the demonstrations were, in fact, an effort by the U.S. to influence the negotiations, and that that's why the U.S. let the negotiations -- let the demonstrations go on so long. |
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| Summit might launch further trade talks | ||||||||||||||||||||
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MARGARET WARNER: One of the issues that the demonstrators talk about, and we had a discussion last night on the show as well, is the fact that all these WTO trade matters, when they are adjudicated, are all done in secret in Geneva. DAVID SANGER: That's right. MARGARET WARNER: Do you think that at the very least, this meeting
might change
Many in Europe oppose this. They say that these are basically government-to- government negotiations, even if they're taking place in front of a judge, and if you opened it up, it would change the nature of the process, make it far more political. The U.S. response is, "Well, the International Court of the Hague's proceedings are open, why not these?" I suspect that you'll see the U.S. make some progress on this, but probably not anywhere near enough to satisfy the critics of the secrecy of the WTO. MARGARET WARNER: Now the administration came into this wanting to use this meeting to launch this next round of global trade talks. Where do you think the prospects of that stand now?
Let me give you an example. Watch for the wording on what the objective is in agricultural subsidies. The U.S. wants wording that says that the purpose of the negotiations is to eliminate subsidies to farmers, and the Europeans just want wording that will say something like move to reduce or substantially reduce. MARGARET WARNER: Final question, and briefly, the president, of course, is there now. He is the leader of the most powerful country in the free world. How do you expect the administration to try to use him? In other words, if he had one thing he's trying to do there, what is it?
MARGARET WARNER: Yeah. I see what you mean. All right, well, thank you, David, very much. DAVID SANGER: Thank you, Margaret. Good to see you. MARGARET WARNER: Good to see you. |
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MARGARET
WARNER: Very well. I see now at least we're able to get you out of the
meeting site. 
DAVID
SANGER: They seem to be. I was just up in the offices of some of the
trade negotiators, and you see groups getting together and beginning
to hash through the questions of what will actually be on the agenda
for these trade negotiations. And remember that while you see plenary
sessions and so forth on television, the real work of these kinds of
things is really done in small rooms with small groups of representatives
of different countries. 
MARGARET
WARNER: Now yesterday we talked about the fact that the administration
was ready to push for at least starting some working group on labor
inside the WTO. Are they ready to go any further? The reason I ask that
is that the president, I guess, gave an interview to the Seattle newspaper,
one of them, and said he thought that the working group should then
go on to define core standards on labor matters, and that in fact they
should become part of trade agreements, and that ultimately there should
be a system with sanctions for violating provisions of that. Are they
pushing for that now? 
own
negotiating team, because their public statement so far has been, "We
just want to study these issues. We don't know how it will turn out."
Of course, these statements reveal how the president wants it to turn
out.
DAVID
SANGER: I suspect it will begin to change that, but probably not as
far as many on the street, and even the U.S. negotiators would like.
I was just discussing this subject with some of the U.S. negotiators.
What they are hoping for is to basically make a number of the documents
within the WTO public as countries go back and forth, and even to make
the adjudication process, the court of the WTO, open to some kind of
observation. 
DAVID
SANGER: Well, I would suspect that when they're all done with this,
the talks will be launched. The question is, under what terms? And you
know how these things work out, Margaret. The document that will come
out will be vague on the most contentious issues. Then they'll start
the process of negotiations and at some point, some different countries
will say, no, no, no, no -- the agreement we reached in Seattle doesn't
allow this issue to be negotiated, but it allows that issue. 
DAVID
SANGER: Well, I think what he's trying to do is use his considerable
rhetorical skills to try to move the negotiations toward these labor
standards and environmental standards that we've discussed. But remember,
at this negotiation, the president doesn't have any of his peers from
other countries here. He can't lean on European leaders or Asian leaders.
And so to some degree, his influence is far more limited than, say,
if he's at a G-7 summit.