Clinton Talks Green, But U.S.
Negotiators Cutting Destructive Deals In speeches to
WTO delegates and meetings with U.S. environmental leaders, President Clinton on Wednesday
said the administration is committed to making environmental, labor, and human-rights
standards an integral part of trade negotiations. But even as he spoke, he was instructing
the U.S. negotiating team in Seattle to press for the adoption of measures that could
cause serious environmental harm.
In a luncheon address, Clinton implored trade delegates "to find ways to
prove that the quality of life of ordinary citizens in every country can be lifted,
including basic labor standards and an advance on the environmental front." In an
interview published Wednesday in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, he was even stronger,
saying those issues should be "a part of every trade agreement" and that he
favored sanctions against nations that violate those provisions.
Clinton received only lukewarm applause at the end of his luncheon address. The
Associated Press reported "at least two delegates listened with their eyes
closed."
In the afternoon, Clinton met with leaders of four mainstream environmental
organizations to discuss transparency, fishing subsidies, forests, and the precautionary
principle. Attending the meeting were Durwood Zaelke of the Center for International
Environmental Law, Mark van Putten of the World Wildlife Fund, Kevin Fuller of the World
Resources Institute, and Carl Pope of the Sierra Club.
According to Zaelke, Clinton said he supports the need for transparency "100
percent." On fisheries, he said he strongly support the effort to eliminate
subsidies; and on forests, he said he is not convinced that lowering tariffs would
accelerate logging rates significantly, but conceded that the matter of non-tariff
barriers could be a serious problem. Finally, he said he would give serious consideration
to preservation of the precautionary principle in international trade.
The president asked how he could better institutionalize environmental protection
in international trade, and the environmentalists suggested full implementation of his
recent executive order, including applying it to U.S. challenges to foreign rules and
laws. They also recommended appointment of a special environmental ambassador to assist
with reviews and reform of the Committee on Trade and the Environment.
"It was a positive meeting, and the presidents recent speeches have
been getting stronger and stronger," Zaelke told the Observer. "The big question
now is follow-through and the response of the U.S. Trade Representative."
But some WTO critics who were not in the meeting with the president said U.S.
negotiators have been ordered to reach back-room deals to reduce all tariffs on wood,
fish, gems, and jewels, chemical and energy products by 2004. Many experts predict this
plan will lead to increased logging, fisheries depletion, environmentally destructive
mining, chemical pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
U.S. trade representatives are also fighting to abolish tariffs and subsidies on
agricultural products, primarily from Europe, which could undermine small-scale
sustainable farming. In contradiction to the Presidents public claim that his
"agenda is to fight and win for the family farmers of the United States," his
plan would in fact end subsidies that have proved vital for the growth of small-scale
agricultural producers. It would also undercut these farmers with a flood of cheaper,
industrially produced imports that would follow the removal of tariffs.
President Clinton has also instructed U.S. trade negotiators to press for the
adoption of rules on agricultural biotechnology products that would effectively prevent
countries from banning imports of genetically engineered food and seeds, which an
increasing number of scientists fear could pose serious risks to health and the natural
environment.
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