|
Dan Griswold discusses U.S.-Australia trade relations on ABC Business Breakfast.
July 21, 2003.
|
Emma Alberici: "Today sees the start of the most important negotiations so far on a free trade deal between Australia and the United States. Officials from both countries will gather in Hawaii and, for the first time, they'll discuss what trade barriers they're prepared to lift and what they want in return.
"North America correspondent Leigh Sales sat down with Dan Griswold, a trade analyst at the Cato Institute in Washington, to discuss the progress of the talks so far."
Dan Griswold: "This is going to be the most important and politically charged part of the negotiations, so I think this is where the sparks may fly, at least, outside the negotiating room."
LEIGH SALES: "What are the contentious issues at this point?"
Dan Griswold: "Well, I think beef is one. Australia is a major producer of beef. Americans imported $1 billion worth of Australian beef last year and yet we have a very strong beef industry, both in production and political clout in the United States. I think other contentious areas on the Australian side are going to be the Australian Wheat Board and that has come under increasing scrutiny. I think your FIDO sanitary and sanitary regulations on animal and plant health -- there's some question whether the Australian rules go too far. I know you're an island and want to keep a quarantine sort of regime, in effect, but there's some concern that these go beyond safety and health concerns and are becoming a form of protectionisms."
LEIGH SALES: "We have recently seen the US sign an FTA with Chile and one of the features of that was that in the sensitive areas -- like dairy and agriculture -- there were things called 'phase-ins', which meant that the tariffs and quotas would be phased out over a period of time. Is that likely to be a feature of the Australian agreement as well?"
Dan Griswold: "I think those phase-ins -- they're economically a negative, but politically they may be necessary to get this passed. I mean, after all, after 10 or 12 years, we will have full comprehensive free trade. So, at least, in the long run, we'll achieve what should be achieved. It just may be necessary politically to get it through Congress, against the objections of some fairly potent domestic lobbies, like the dairy industry, the beef industry, the sugar industry. So, I think this may be a political necessity."
LEIGH SALES: "Which sectors would you expect to attract phase-ins?"
Dan Griswold: "It's going to be the traditional ones -- dairy, sugar, beef, perhaps cotton, rice. Even in the Singapore agreement -- now Singapore's not known as a big agricultural exporter but we had that language in the Singapore agreement, so you know it's going to be there in the Australian agreement."
LEIGH SALES: "The Australian Government and the US say they'd like to see a text agreed upon by the end of this year. Is that time frame too ambitious?"
Dan Griswold: "No, I think it's doable. The Chile agreement took so long because for eight years the President didn't have fast-track and so there wasn't much of an incentive to get anything done because it wasn't going to be voted on anyway. Now the President has trade promotion authority, he has a trade representative who is very aggressive. We have foreign policy reasons to want to do this deal soon. So I think it is quite doable. We have two recent agreements that provide a lot of language that can be useful in this agreement. So, I think it very well could happen and now, with these other agreements resolved, the USTR has more resources to put into the negotiations."
LEIGH SALES: "That's step one of the process. Step two is obviously the need to get it through Congress. How quickly are they going to be able do to that? Will it be able to happen in the first six months of next year before things get bogged down in the presidential elections?"
Dan Griswold: "Yes, there are some real pluses and minuses with a US-Australian agreement. Again, on the economic side, Australia is a major producer of things we want to buy and we have some protection. So, economically there's a big payoff there. But that means there are some domestic special interests that have something to lose from the introduction of that competition. So, I think, unlike Chile and Singapore, you are going to see some real domestic resistance among the beef and dairy and sugar industries, who are going to raise some questions about this. I think that can be overcome. I think the big plus for the US-Australian agreement is well, one -- Australia is a developed country, so you avoid some of those issues about labour standards and that sort of thing. But two -- Australia has been and continues to be a major US ally in the war against terrorism in our operation in Iraq. Foreign policy has traditionally been a big part of US trade policy and I think that is going to work in Australia's favour this time around and win it even more friends in Congress."
|
