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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 president’s 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 President’s 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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