Global Policy Forum

By Michael Paulson

Washington -- They won't be dressed in costume, and they won't be Picketing in the streets, but the business leaders of America are preparing to engage in a war of words to defend the free trade principles they believe will be under attack in Seattle at this year's meeting of the World Trade Organization. Many of America's biggest companies and broadest trade associations have agreed to back a new and fast-growing alliance whose purpose is not to lobby the world leaders who gather in Seattle Nov. 30-Dec. 3, but to influence American public opinion through the news media.

The business leaders have become increasingly alarmed in recent weeks by a steady stream of news stories about protest preparations, as well as by the misgivings expressed by some members of the Metropolitan King County Council about the World Trade Organization meeting. In response, the business community is promising to become increasingly vocal in its defense of free trade.

"We are not going to be wearing rubber chicken suits and rappelling down the Space Needle, but our intention is to provide a reasoned and rational explanation of the benefits of global trade expansion to both workers and consumers," said Scot Montrey, a spokesman for the U.S. Alliance for Trade Expansion, the national coalition whose membership includes local corporate heavyweights Boeing and Paccar as well as national companies such as General Electric and IBM. "All you have to do is read the newspaper to know that the anti-WTO forces have been more effective, thus far, than we have, and that's why we're here. We're here to makes sure a lot of the crazy things they say don't go unanswered."

The WTO meeting, which will bring the trade ministers of more than 150 countries to Seattle, will be the largest trade meeting ever on U.S. soil, and promises to attract a colorful and diverse array of protesters whose tactics are likely to range from holding alternative talks to staging acts of civil disobedience.

Seattle was chosen to host the meeting in part because of Washington state's extraordinary dependence on trade. Washington claims to be the most trade-dependent state in the country, with one out of four jobs directly related to exports. But the city, with a strong progressive streak and a history of activism, also has proven to be fertile territory for consumer and environmental groups looking for ground troops to protest the meeting.

The business community is motivated not only by its concern over the effect of news coverage of WTO critics on public opinion, but also by the failure in recent months of Congress to renew fast-track authority for the president. Fast-track is a provision that in the past had allowed presidents to negotiate trade deals and present them to Congress for expedited up-or-down votes without amendment.

"We have not done a good job of presenting our case to the American people," said Scott Miller, a lobbyist for Procter & Gamble Co. and chairman of the business alliance, known as U.S. Trade. "There's now a real understanding in the business community that a lot of our agenda has not moved forward the way we would like it to because we haven't addressed ourselves in a clear way to answering 'What's in this for Americans?'"

But the business community acknowledges it will be difficult to compete for attention with protesters who are already getting trained in attention-getting tactics. "The press will always find it more interesting to take pictures of people practicing to scale buildings or going to a protest boot camp than a silver-suited businessman trying to make a point about the trading interests of the United States or an economist talking about the improvement in consumer welfare," said Ray Waldmann, the Boeing executive who is the director of the Seattle Host Committee for the WTO meeting.

A key organizer for the protesters scoffed at the business community's efforts. The protesters, drawn from a variety of public-interest groups, argue that the WTO is anti-democratic and is not appropriately attentive to the concerns of public health, the environment and labor around the world. "I am just quaking down to my boots that the business lobby is going to put together a public relations campaign," said Michael Dolan, an organizer with Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. "They're a big business dinosaur that has a thought and then it takes forever for its big lumbering corporate body to do anything about it, when we've already scampered ahead."

U.S. Trade hopes to join the debate by providing the news media and the public with statistical and anecdotal information bolstering the business community's arguments in favor of unfettered global trade. The organization will argue that global trade is responsible for America's booming economy and low unemployment, and that global trade lowers prices and creates jobs in America. The organization will try to steer the conversation toward the general topic of free trade, and away from the more difficult and arcane questions surrounding the World Trade Organization.

Miller said the business community shares some of the critics' concerns about the WTO, in particular its penchant for secrecy, but that U.S. business leaders still believe it is good for the United States because the organization's rules open foreign markets to U.S. companies. Miller plans to travel to Seattle in coming weeks to recruit Washington state companies to join the coalition of business groups, which already boasts more than 200 members, including a variety of large trade associations such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable. The group plans to set up a "war room" in Seattle in the days leading up to the WTO meeting to provide rapid response from the pro-trade business community to the many allegations expected to be raised by protesters.

U.S. Trade has been created in part to fill a vacuum created because the U.S. Trade Representative's office will primarily represent the U.S. government at the meeting, while the Seattle Host Committee, chaired by Microsoft Chairman and Chief Executive Bill Gates and Boeing Chief Executive Phil Condit, will be focused on logistics. Neither the Clinton administration nor the Host Committee has been willing or able to take on the job of "message" as aggressively as the business community would like.

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