US trade chief hands olive branch to EU

Date: 30/04/03

By Peter Chapman

UNITED States' trade chief Robert Zoellick still wants to do business with the EU, but admits that his country was deeply "hurt" by the comments expressed by some European leaders over the US-led invasion of Iraq.

Speaking at the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) yesterday, 29 April, Zoellick said he had conveyed to French business leaders the sense of betrayal felt by many Americans.

"I told them that a lot of Americans don't just feel disappointed.

"They feel hurt. I told them about a colleague's father who was in the 101st Airborne Division during World War II who went into Normandy and was captured, but then fought with the French Resistance and came back and fought in the Netherlands.

"These events led him to tell his daughter his life had been wasted. Well, of course it hasn't, but there is deep resonance to these things."

However, Zoellick insisted that the EU and US must now set aside their differences and mobilise to pull-off a "once-in-a generation" trade agreement, despite a series of setbacks to talks in the so-called Doha round.

"I'm here because I see common economic interests for the US, Europe and globally," the US trade representative told a group of six specially invited correspondents.

The EU and US are "joined at the hip with 1.5 trillion of trade", he added.

Crucially, Zoellick insisted that he could still draw on his special relationship with his EU counterpart, Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy, to help bolster the flagging world trade talks.

Scotching reports that recent transatlantic trade spats had soured relations with his former jogging buddy, Zoellick gave an emphatic "Yes" when asked if he still regarded the Frenchman as a good friend. He even quipped that the future EU President - touted by the Convention on the future of Europe - could not make it easier for him to know "who to call" in the event of a trade crisis.

"I am content working with Mr Lamy and [agriculture chief] Franz Fischler," said Zoellick, before joking that the president's job might have its attractions for him, asking: "Is it open to Americans?"

Zoellick said EU efforts to agree reforms to agricultural markets by June would be crucial to the success of the forthcoming Cancun World Trade Organization meeting in Mexico - a key staging post on the way to a new trade agreement.

"We obviously have our differences on issues like agriculture but I honestly think that Commissioners Fischler and Lamy are trying to move forward the process and now the question is whether the member states will support them.

"Without it we are going to have some problems in Cancun," he warned.

Despite his bridge-building efforts, Zoellick could not resist a stab at French President Jacques Chirac's "post-colonial" proposal to do away with export subsidies to African countries.

If subsidies were bad for Africa, he insisted, they were also bad for the rest of the world. The trade chief also said he regretted not having the chance to respond to the "verbiage" of Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt over America's own updated agriculture regime, which he said had cut US farm spending - not increased it.

Zoellick rejected claims that the US was acting hypocritically by pushing trade liberalisation rhetoric and attacking the EU's moratorium on genetically modified organisms, while erecting barriers such as tariffs on steel.

"That is old news," he snapped, adding that the US actually imported more steel from Europe and the rest of the world after it put the safeguard measures in place.

United States' trade chief Robert Zoellick still wants to do business with the European Union, but admits that his country was deeply 'hurt' by the comments expressed by some European leaders over the US-led invasion of Iraq.