Subject: [NEXTEL-1] GAO asked to review trade agreements

From: Marcelrf <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2004 18:35:52 -0500

GAO asked to review trade agreements
By JEFFREY SILVA
March 09 13:27:00, 2004

WASHINGTON—A key Senate lawmaker, amid a ballooning trade deficit and
festering disputes with foreign countries over wireless standards and
other barriers to open markets, today asked the General Accounting
Office to review the 250 trade agreements to which the United States is
a party.

“This study, which will b completed in 2005, will help Congress and the
administration better assess how well we do at enforcing trade
agreements and how to allocate our resources to achieve the best
possible results,” said Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), ranking member of the
Finance Committee, at a hearing this morning.

The Bush administration continues to negotiate with China and Korea over
wireless standards for mobile-phone content downloading, Wi-Fi security
and portable Internet service that government and industry leaders say
would discriminate against

U.S. wireless and high-tech companies.

Republicans and Democrats voiced concern about the U.S.’ $500 billion
trade imbalance and the outsourcing of American jobs overseas, though
they differed on how to address the latter matter. Wireless and other
high-tech sectors embrace outsourcing as a cost-savings option that
allows them to tap into technology expertise overseas.

However, U.S. lawmakers whose constituents have been laid off as a
result of outsourcing are less sympathetic to the practice.
Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee,
accused Democrats—including presidential hopefuls—of exploiting offshore
outsourcing for political gain during the election year.  U.S. Trade
Representative Robert Zoellick, testifying before the panel, said
outsourcing should be addressed in a way that helps workers hurt by the
practice—by retraining, for example—without harming other jobs.

“It’s clear economic isolationism wont’t work,” said Zoellick.

http://rcrnews.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?newsId=17221

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