Building Support for More Open Trade: Report of an Independent Task Force

by Robert Edward Rubin

With the current slowdown in the world economy, the expansion of free trade is critically important to economic growth in the United States and abroad. The United States must move forward on expanding trade now, so concludes this report of an Independent Task Force, led by Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin and Reagan White House Chief of Staff Kenneth M. Duberstein.Created to help break America's political deadlock on trade, and accepting that trade expansion contributes "to economic growth by promoting investment, encouraging competition and technological innovation, and reducing inflation," the task force reaches two broad first, trade expansion, when combined with complementary domestic policies, can help address the problems cited by labor, environmentalists, and others concerned with social issues;and second, the United States must move ahead on Trade Promotion Authority (formerly "fast track"). The Task Force specifically supports a formula for this process that is built into the new U.S.-Jordan trade agreement, namely that states should not relax or selectively enforce labor or environmental laws to gain trade advantage.

Paperback

Published January 1, 2001