Baucus: U.S. 'treading water' on trade

Envoys tell Kalispell markets will bring peace, prosperity

Sen. Max Baucus thinks the United States is missing the boat when it comes to trade.

"We in America are not reaching out aggressively enough to get trade agreements with other countries," the Montana Democrat said Wednesday at a global trade conference in Kalispell.

Most on a panel of five international trade ambassadors from Vietnam, Colombia, Morocco, New Zealand and Peru agreed.

Other nations are sealing free-trade deals among themselves, Baucus said, lowering and eliminating tariffs to pump new vigor into their markets. But the United States is "a little slow."

Baucus pointed to New Zealand trade ambassador Roy Ferguson's example from earlier in the morning: His country has a trade agreement with China but not with the United States, and not for lack of interest on the part of New Zealand.

"We need to reach out and make those agreements," Baucus said. "We're treading water. We can no longer tread water."

To balance out the impacts and tide people over through retraining programs should they lose jobs to global trade, Baucus said he's pushing in Washington for renewal of Trade Adjustment Assistance.

Wednesday's conference drew just over 100 people interested in local trade expansion on a global scale. The Kalispell Chamber of Commerce teamed up with the U.S. Chamber to explore how Montana businesses can widen their opportunities by trading in new markets.

Liz Reilly, a Marion native who now directs the U.S. Chamber's TradeRoots program, was on hand to explain the support her office can provide for local businesses wanting to sell their products directly into world markets. (Visit www.traderoots.org for information.)

Her colleague Leslie Schweitzer, senior trade adviser for the U.S. Chamber, explained the group's strategy for expanding global trade opportunities for its individual members.

"Trade is under attack," she said, listing political opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement and other pacts. "But globalization has hit Montana, and it has hit Kalispell."

Her office is working to open up new global markets for domestic small businesses, she said, with Colombia, Panama and Korea next on their list.

Colombian Ambassador Carolina Barco made a case that her nation is a safe place to do business today. In the six years after massive infusions of U.S. aid to Colombia began in 2000, targeting drug warlords and associated crime, she said violence dropped 70 percent and kidnappings were down 85 percent.

"There is no problem with security in Colombia," she told the group. In the relative absence of crime, she added, prosperity has entered. "Our growth rate is 7 percent in both of the past two years. And that is coming from a recession in 1998 … We are looking at new alliances."

On a four-day tour of Western Montana that wrapped up with their return to Washington, D.C., Wednesday afternoon, the five ambassadors saw much that surprised them. Barco said she was surprised at the sophistication and global knowledge of Montanans.

New Zealand's Ferguson was impressed with progress in biofuels.

"I was surprised by the work being done here in cellulosic ethanol, the second-generation ethanol," Ferguson said. It's a technology that piqued his interest and one, he said, that could help his country achieve the national goal of drawing on biofuels for 90 percent of its energy needs by 2025.

He also encouraged a new agricultural partnership between New Zealand and Montana, both places where "agriculture is the backbone of our economies."

Peruvian ambassador Felipe Ortiz De Zevallos spoke for his country and its southern neighbor Chile in stressing the importance of the free trade agreement with the U.S. It offers business in Peru some continuity, he said, and makes trade more convenient. He encouraged business people in the room to establish first-hand trade relationships with his country.

"For all the support you can get from us," De Zevallos said of his office in Washington, "you are free to call."

Le Cong Phung, trade ambassador from Vietnam, was surprised on two fronts when contrasting his country with Montana.

"One is Montana politics; it is very strange for me to see Democrats on one side and Republicans on the other side," but all are working together to choose the best leader, he said.

"Also Montana is landlocked and has a small population, but is not stopped" by that or its mountains when pursuing trade opportunities, as he has witnessed in Vietnam. "You reach out to the world. You are determined to do better for your selves and for your state."

Now, with normalized national relations and with an 80 million population that is projected to grow to more than 100 million in the next 10 years, Phung said his country is prime for trade with Montana.

"If we have the will to understand each other," he said, "we can work together."

Moroccan ambassador Aziz Mekouar was struck that, in a sparsely populated state, "the people of Montana are pretty international."

With a relationship dating to 1777 when Morocco became the first nation to recognize the fledgling United States, trade between the two is strong and getting stronger, he said. From 2006 to 2007, trade grew from $1.265 billion to $2 billion overall, with food trade alone growing from $340 million to $773 million.

"Trade brings wealth to everybody and trade brings peace to everybody," Mekouar said, "and that's the way to go."

Montana Chamber President Webb Brown echoed the sentiment.

"We absolutely believe that trade is not only the path to prosperity but also the path to peace," Brown said. "You don't want to go out and pick a fight with someone you're doing business with."

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com