TIME EUROPE
DECEMBER 6, 1999 VOL. 154 NO. 23
BUSINESS: THE BATTLE IN SEATTLE
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The antiglobalist message resonates across a broad swath of ideology, from the isolationist Buchananite right to a kaleidoscope of left-wing groups. "The WTO has brought about a harmonic convergence," said John Sellers, director of the Ruckus Society, as he trained a group of Berkeley students for civil disobedience last month. Forest activists, who have polished their skills blocking the logging of redwoods, will target U.S. efforts to slash worldwide tariffs on paper and pulp products.
At least it may be good theater. In early November, U.S. Labor Secretary Alexis Herman, in Seattle to drum up support for free trade, was picketed by steelworkers, antinuclear activists, Free Burma advocates--and Anne Kirkham, 26, of the Bicycle Alliance of Washington. "I'm a bicycle activist, but it's all one big thing--globalism, urban sprawl, pollution," she explained. "It's about corporate greed."
Police have little to fear from the 240 Humane Society activists, dressed in turtle costumes, set to protest the WTO's shrimp-export decision. Nor are they worried about the human chain of hand-holding clergy and parishioners who will surround the delegates' reception Monday to plead for Third World debt relief. But scores of "radical jeerleaders" have been practicing their choreographed cheers in church basements: "Smash the state/ Let's liberate!" Four Molotov cocktails were lobbed into an empty Gap store in downtown Seattle in November, Gap being a focus of anti-sweatshop protests. No wonder the city has budgeted $6 million for police overtime and is stockpiling tear gas. "If there are rowdy guests, we plan to treat them that way," says Seattle Mayor Paul Schell.
While the protesters take to the streets, corporate lobbyists will be taking to the halls. The Idaho Barley Commission has registered, as have the German Bar Association and the Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India. Many are baffled by the uproar. "As somebody who protested against Vietnam, I'm not sure what everyone is so cranked up about," says Procter & Gamble lobbyist Scott Miller, chairman of the U.S. Alliance for Trade Expansion. "We've had eight years of amazing prosperity." U.S. business is more concerned about opening up what some call the European trade cartel than it is about the Administration's overtures to citizen groups. "Environment and labor standards won't be tied to trade even if the U.S. stands on its head and spits wooden nickels," says Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "The Chamber won't let it happen, and the rest of the world won't let it happen."
He's right. although the U.S. wields a big stick, the WTO operates by consensus. The largest bloc, made up of 77 developing countries, stands virtually united against efforts by wealthier countries to influence environmental and labor laws in developing countries. As for human rights: "There's an Asian consensus that human rights should not be linked to trade," says economist M.G. Quibria of the Asian Development Bank in Manila. In the view of developing countries, trade-pact clauses involving labor and the environment amount to backdoor protectionism.
That makes it awkward for many U.S. protesters, who say they are out to help the Third World, not just clean up the planet, end child labor and promote human rights. Venezuela and Brazil successfully challenged as discriminatory a U.S. law that set stringent environmental regulations for refineries that make gasoline for export. Four Asian countries--Malaysia, India, Pakistan and Thailand--were the challengers to the U.S. effort to ban shrimp caught in nets without turtle escape hatches. "If you want to put turtles ahead of Indian poverty, go ahead!" said Columbia University economist Jagdish Bhagwati in a debate. "But why not go out and buy these $15 nets at Wal-Mart and give them to the fishermen?"
For years, the cold war afforded political cover for free trade. Who could oppose economic freedom as it cleared a pathway for democracy? But as the threat of communism receded, the public began to focus on market globalization as the root of many evils. The underlying principle of the global economy is that each country should manufacture and freely export the goods it can make at a comparative advantage--read more cheaply--over other countries. If this means paying slave wages and leveling the rainforest, so be it.
Despite the economic upturn, this ethic of survival of the fittest has spawned widespread anxiety in rich and poor countries alike. In Washington State, nearly one out of three jobs is linked to exports--in theory creating a pro-trade constituency--but from software coders to apple pickers, there is a sense that their jobs could migrate tomorrow. "Many people see only layoffs," laments Commerce Secretary William Daley, who has been dogged by protesters. "They don't see the payoffs of this open-trading system."
Many, like Daley, would argue that peace and prosperity can flourish only if trade barriers are torn down. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan acknowledged in a speech that "the trading system is one of the great success stories of the past half-century." At the same time, he added, with a quarter of the globe's population mired in poverty, multinational companies risk a wave of protectionism unless they commit to "global corporate citizenship" in the form of concessions to labor, human rights and environmental health.
Such is the challenge of the WTO, the newest and arguably most powerful global institution on the block. If the protests in Seattle do not degenerate into anarchic violence, and if the negotiators can somehow put aside their cantankerous brinkmanship, a new dialogue is likely to be opened on--naive as it may sound--how to make the world a better place.
With reporting by Hannah Beech/Hong Kong, Steven Frank/Toronto and James L. Graff/Brussels
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