Friends of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

January 30, 2012
The Hill
Vicki Needham

U.S. trade officials are expecting to cut a wide swath through a broad trade agenda this year, all probably before Congress leaves town in August. 

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk has three major issues on his agenda — implementing the three free-trade agreements passed last fall, opening up the Russian market to U.S. goods and services and wrapping up negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Russia's ascension to the World Trade Organization (WTO) is topping the agenda for the Obama administration and business groups. 

"It's our top trade legislative priority for the year," Chris Wenk, senior director for International Policy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, told The Hill on Friday. 

The Coalition for US-Russia Trade — a group of businesses pushing for the changes needed to move forward — is "starting an aggressive ramp up reaching out to the Hill," he said. 

Kirk, who spoke with The Hill on Friday from the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, said the U.S. pressed for Russia's long-awaited addition to the WTO and granting them permanent normal trade relations. 

"There is a receptive audience to those propositions," he said. 

Congress and the former Communist nation will each need to take steps — Russia has until July 22 to accept a several-hundred page report of rules they must follow — and lawmakers will need to provide permanent normal trade relations by waiving the Jackson-Vanik amendment — a 37-year-old provision crafted to put pressure on Communist nations for human-rights abuses and emigration policies. 

Kirk said he expects that Russia will ratify the plan this summer and, by that time, Congress also should have acted and the country will be open for U.S. business. 

"Ideally Congress will act between now and the summer," he said. 

At this point, lawmakers are getting up to speed on the issue, which could come before Congress this spring, although there isn't a clear timeline. 

President Obama has said he wants to work with Congress to end the application of the Jackson-Vanik. 

Russia, which has been trying to join the trade organization since 1993, is the largest of the world's economies that isn't part of the 153-member WTO.

"Russia’s membership in the WTO will lower tariffs, improve international access to Russia’s services markets, hold the Russian government accountable to a system of rules governing trade behavior, and provide the means to enforce those rules," Obama said in November. 

Benefits also apply to Russia’s other WTO trading partners, including Georgia.

Kirk also said his office is moving as quickly as possible to complete work on the trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama, which Congress completed in October after years of delays. 

"The president gave us an unqualified charge," he said, to complete work on the accords "as quickly as possible."

"We're making very good progress," he said. 

He said there are several partners at the economic meeting and they have reaffirmed "our commitment to the work."

U.S. officials also are taking a hard look at expanding TPP nations to Japan, Canada and Mexico, Kirk said. Negotiations on the Asian-Pacific pact expanded in November as talks moved swiftly with the eight other nations involved — Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Chile, Peru and Brunei. 

Still, despite what could be another year of success on the trade front, Kirk said he is unlikely to stay on if Obama is elected to a second term. 

Although he didn't completely rule it out, he was clear that he had made a commitment to his family to hold the top trade spot for four years. 

"I still pinch myself everyday when I walk into the White House," he said. 

"But I made a commitment to my wife and kids that I would do only one term."

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