Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 29, 1994 TAG: 9412070059
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRED WEBBER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
AMERICAN voters have clearly called for making government more efficient and effective. It is encouraging that the Republican leadership and the administration have already said they will work hard to find common ground. The lame-duck session of Congress convening to deal with unfinished business - specifically the approval of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade - presents an early opportunity.
Based on my experience with the U.S. chemical industry, the country's largest exporter of goods and one long involved in foreign investments, I believe there is only one way our representatives and senators can vote and keep faith with America's future. Congress must approve GATT.
Some members of Congress believe we need to postpone a vote to build additional protection for American industry. But what American industry needs is a chance to compete on equal ground - equal ground created by GATT.
Just as Will Rogers recognized that people learn from foreign cultures, so too does the world's economy benefit from international trade. This has been true throughout history, but certainly no more so than since the first GATT agreement was signed nearly 50 years ago in Geneva.
Since then, U.S. exports have increased sevenfold, adding more than 7 million jobs. By 1993, worldwide exports for all countries reached $3.5 trillion. This emergence of a true global economy has led to specialization of goods and services, which improves their quality, and provides consumers throughout the world with better products and lower costs.
The Uruguay Round Agreement will cut our tariffs worldwide an average of 30 percent, and protect valuable patents on American research, creativity and development. Economists estimate that for every $1 billion gained in exports, 20,000 domestic jobs are created. By 2005, an additional $100 billion a year will be pumped into the American economy, and that in turn will add another 2 million jobs.
The Uruguay Round levels the playing field by creating a World Trade Organization. With the rights we gain in this new organization, our leading high-wage industries will be able to more effectively pursue cases of unfair trade. Industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, plastics, telecommunications, aerospace, computer equipment, industrial and farm machinery, paper manufacture, semiconductors, electronics and agriculture will benefit under the World Trade Organization.
The greater protection that GATT will provide for America's intellectual property, know-how, ideas and innovations will spur growth in many of these industries.
The reduction or elimination of tariffs for 40 major export markets will provide us with enormous opportunities to increase sales, improve investment returns and create new jobs.
By approving GATT, Congress will ensure that all countries that compete with us play by the same rules, open their markets to our goods, and respect our inventions, patents, technology, products and services that are desired and revered around the world.
Rejecting the accord would place our country at the mercy of unfair trade practices that include dumping goods at below-market costs, using lax environmental restrictions to attract investment, and imposing punitive tariffs that price our products out of the market.
As this nation's largest exporter, my own industry, chemicals, has a very major stake in GATT. Chemical-industry exports account for one of every 10 dollars the United States earns from exports. Since 1947, chemical-company exports have grown faster than the domestic market.
In 1993, U.S. chemical companies earned $45 billion through exports, accounting for 160,000 of the industry's 1.1 million domestic jobs. Since 1983, exports as a percentage of chemical industry sales have risen from 10.5 percent to 14.4 percent. Approval of GATT will help America's chemical industry expand export sales by $15.2 billion within 10 years, adding tens of thousands of high-salary jobs to America's communities.
Postponing a vote in Congress until 1995, when the new Congress meets, not only delays final approval for a progressive international agreement, it threatens to destroy it.
Over the years, countries have waged bitter warfare to secure and maintain markets for their goods and services. GATT is a peaceful, positive way to achieve the same end. GATT will be very good for America. It will be good for our economy, our work force, our investors, and - above all - our future as a world economic power.
Fred Webber is president and chief executive officer of the Chemical Manufacturers Association in Washington, D.C.
Knight-Ridder/Tribune
by CNB