Bhatia states case for free trade at AIADA conference

Bhatia states case for free trade at AIADA conference    Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Karan Bhatia told the American International Automobile Dealers Association in Washington, D.C. Monday that political pressure is mounting to stifle foreign trade expansion.
   “More and more, we hear Americans questioning the value of an open, rules-based system of international trade,” Bhatia said. “That critique has been getting louder over the last few years. What is most puzzling about the criticism is that it coincides with U.S. economic performance that may be unrivaled across the world. We have an unemployment rate of 4.7 percent, GDP growth of 4.8 percent, and increasing exports in virtually every sector. The necessity of a free and open trading system for our prosperity would seem to be at its zenith, and yet the value of that system, paradoxically, is questioned more and more.”
   Bhatia also said that, according to the Institute for International Economics, annual U.S. income is $1 trillion higher today than it would have been absent the post-World War II trade liberalization.
   “That’s $9,000 more every year for the average American household,” he said. “NAFTA and the Uruguay Round multilateral agreement in the early 1990s have added from $1,300 to $2,000 to the income of the average American family of four.”
   And he said that the automobile sector should be particularly concerned with upcoming multilateral trade negotiations.
   “We’ve been working hard to craft an ambitious outcome in the area of services,” he said. “And — of particular interest to many of you — we’ve also been the leader in pushing for greater market access for manufactured goods. Autos and auto parts, as with other manufactured goods, will be subject to a yet-to-be-defined formula of tariff reductions.”