Trade Policy Roundtable

Foreign Policy Consequences of Bilateral and Regional Trade Agreements (April 3, 2002)

Seminar at 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, April 3, 2002, at Steptoe & Johnson, 1330 Connecticut Avenue, N.W. (Fourth Floor), Washington, D.C. 20036

AMERICA's trade strategy is to pursue bilateral, regional and multilateral negotiations simultaneously and then concentrate on what works.  Does that make sense for a country that historically, according to Professor Gordon in America�s Trade Follies, is a global exporter, shipping almost equally to Europe, Latin America and East Asia?  A trade policy based on regionalism and bilateralism, he adds, threatens U.S. national-security goals and interests.  Moreover, the proliferation of bilateral and regional free trade areas, each with its own rules of origin, is complicating investment decision-making by U.S. firms on the location of their production facilities.  Indeed, that is partly why the National Foreign Trade Council, among others, has urged that the United States push � in the Doha Round negotiations � for the elimination of industrial tariffs. 

After Professor Gordon has presented his paper, the discussion will be initiated by ERNEST PREEG (Manufacturers Alliance) and WILLIAM REINSCH (National Foreign Trade Council).

BERNARD GORDON, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of New Hampshire, has been a consultant with the National Security Council and has testified before House and Senate committees.  His most recent book, America�s Trade Follies (2001), develops arguments he has made in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy and The National Interest.    

About the Speaker and Discussant 

Bernard K. Gordon

BERNARD K. GORDON, a specialist on trade issues and foreign policy, is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH.  He has been a consultant to the National Security Council and the Office of the Secretary of Defense; and he has testified by invitation before Senate and House committees.  Professor Gordon is the author of five books, most recently America�s Trade Follies: Turning Economic Leadership into Strategic Weakness (London and New York: Routledge, 2001).  His relevant monographs include America's Trade: Markets Count More than Deficits (Honolulu: East-West Center, 1993) and Politics and Protectionism in the Pacific (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1989). 

On trade policy issues, Professor Gordon has had articles published in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy and The National Interest; and he has written for The Wall Street Journal, The Far Eastern Economic Review, The New York Times, Christian Science Monitor and The Los Angeles Times.  He has been a visiting professor at the School for Advance International Studies (Johns Hopkins), Kobe University, the International University of Japan, the National University of Singapore and Kyoto University.

Ernest H. Preeg

ERNEST H. PREEG, author of Traders in a Brave New World (1995), about the Uruguay Round negotiations, is a Senior Fellow in Trade and Productivity at the Manufacturers Alliance, Arlington, VA.  Previously he held the William M Scholl Chair in International Business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC, in 1988-98.  Earlier he was Chief Economist at the Agency for International Development (1986-88) and U.S. Ambassador to Haiti (1981-83). 

William Reinsch 

WILLIAM REINSCH, President of the National Foreign Trade Council, was previously Under Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration (1994-2001).  Earlier he was legislative assistant to Senator Jay D. Rockefeller (1991-93) and, before that, chief legislative assistant to Senator John Heinz III (1977-91).  He has also been an adjunct professor of international relations at the Graduate School of Management and Technology, University of Maryland at College Park (1990-2000).

The Cordell Hull Institute�s Trade Policy Roundtable is sponsored by Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, Arnold & Porter, O�Melveny & Myers, Steptoe & Johnson and Wilmer Cutler & Pickering