The Meeting: The Battle In Seattle

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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. Is big better? Is small still beautiful? 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 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 countries and poor countries alike. In Washington State 3 out of 4 jobs may be 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."