EC Official Warns U.S. on Unilateral Trade Moves

Roy Denman, the European Community representative in Washington, warned the United States against setting a rule that trading partners running a surplus should be “beaten over the head” for not removing trade barriers.

Denman, in an Op-Ed piece in today’s Washington Post, said trade disputes should be dealt with through negotiations, either bilaterally or multilaterally, through the Geneva-based United Nations agency, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, GATT.

Denman’s comments came as the Senate was to begin debate this week on a major trade bill.

“It is dangerous to establish a rule that trading partners running a surplus with the United States should be beaten over the head if trade barriers objected to by the United States are not removed within a certain time-scale,” said Denman in an apparent reference to some of the measures in the congressional trade bill.

“If we turn to the path of unilateral action, retaliation and counter-retaliation, the one-world (GATT) trading system will very quickly unravel,” he said.

Denman said the 170 billion dlr U.S. trade deficit was not purely the result of unfair trade practices by foreign nations.

“The trade deficit results from a combination of macroeconomic factors (the U.S. budget deficit), the exchange rate and the competitiveness of (U.S.) domestic industry,” Denman said.

He also said that Washington employed what he termed unfair trade prctices.

He said the European Community had recently updated a list of some 30 U.S. trade barriers that impede EC exports.

“We did not circulate this list with any hostile or aggressive intent. We did so to set the record straight,” Denman said.