Word: gattes
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...year-old bargaining session known as the Uruguay Round of GATT, the 107-nation General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, is in trouble. Washington and the E.C. are locked in a quarrel over how much Europe will be allowed to subsidize its farmers and thus give them an advantage over everyone from American wheat growers to Third World farmers trying to produce cash crops for foreign markets. There are fears that unless something is done to break the stalemate, the world will slip into commercial darkness and political tension. Warns GATT's director general Arthur Dunkel: "There will be major...
Perhaps so. But it's hard for citizens in the industrialized U.S. -- which is relatively self-sufficient and historically prone to protectionist impulses -- to get a grip on GATT, let alone get very alarmed about its potential failure. Successive rounds of negotiations, diligently conducted since 1947, have pushed down tariffs from 40% to 4% in member countries. Still, people find it difficult to connect the statistical aggregates of GATT-speak with their lives and wallets...
Since the U.S. market is fairly open, a GATT accord is expected to spur new exports for American firms while adding little in the way of foreign competition that U.S. products do not already face. Carla Hills, U.S. Trade ! Representative, estimates that a successful Uruguay Round (so named for the talks' original venue) would generate an additional $5 trillion in world output over the next decade, of which the American share would be a hefty $1.1 trillion. It's "like writing a check," explains Hills, "to every American family of four for $17,000, payable over 10 years...
...husband, holding the Nancy Reagan gaze. Instead, she is out speaking, spinning and strategizing with as much force as the candidate. When the networks broadcast the Super Tuesday victory celebration at the Chicago Hilton, Hillary Clinton introduced her husband at speech length. She knows the latest take on the GATT talks and Israeli loan guarantees. Her appearances are so devoid of the life-style fluff local papers thrive on that one reporter jokingly complained about "substance abuse...
...otherwise passive role of Japan at GATT is emblematic of one of its basic problems in foreign affairs: its reluctance to take a visible leading role. Says an Asian diplomat in Tokyo: "The Japanese are not willing to make the hard political choices that go with being a great power." As a result, Japanese foreign policy lacks focus or clear direction. For their part, U.S. officials voice the desire that Tokyo express its views more robustly: open exchanges not only signal the underlying equality of a relationship but also make it easier to manage...