Listen Up!(promoting trade agreements to the American public)

• Author: AARONSON, SUSAN ARIEL

A guide for selling trade agreements to a wary American public.

President George W. Bush has an trade agenda. As the States economy slows, he hopes trade liberalization will provide new or larger markets for U.S. producers. Thus, he traveled to Quebec in April to jumpstart the moribund Free Trade Agreement of the Americas. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick has worked hard to convince other nations to agree to a new round of multilateral trade talks, which are scheduled to commence in Doha, Qatar, in November.

This agenda could be blocked in many capitals around the world, from Rio to New Delhi to Brussels. But Bush will also find obstacles to trade liberalization in his own back yard. Congress is divided on the scope and purpose of trade agreements, and the American public is deeply ambivalent about trade liberalization. The Washington, D.C. suburb of Arlington, Virginia provides a good example of how Americans see trade.

Arlington is a lot like other U.S. suburbs. Its denizens work hard, save for their children's education, and look forward to their retirement. They rarely think about trade. Yet trade is an integral part of their daily life. Like most Americans, the people of Arlington drink French wine, eat Mexican food, and work on computers made in Malaysia. When they save for college or retirement, their savings are invested in U.S. companies that import,goods, U.S. companies that sell goods overseas, and foreign companies that invest in the United States. When they go shopping, they load up their Fords and Hondas with many products made overseas.

The people of Arlington, like most Americans, know that the United States is the world's most active trading nation, but they are more aware that the United States is relatively self-sufficient in many areas. They think so-called "free-trade" agreements enable other nations to trade unfairly.

Policymakers are to blame for public misunderstanding about these agreements. They have not effectively communicated why such agreements became essential. Nor have they adequately explained what trade agreements do, namely regulate how and when nations may use tools of protection to limit trade.

The United States is a signatory to some four hundred trade agreements. In recent years, these agreements have had a significant impact on the United States and global economy. They helped (U.S. and foreign) companies compete in worldwide markets, producing enormous economies of scale and scope. This has led to lower prices for consumers in the United States and around the world.

But many American consumers are not cognizant of these benefits. Americans hear plenty about the costs of our huge trade deficit. But they hear very little about how both imports and exports stimulate economic growth. They hear even less about how trade agreements help regulate commerce among nations with different economies, political systems, and norms.

NAFTA provides a good example of the failure to communicate the rationale for trade agreements. The first Bush administration saw NAFTA as a lever to encourage...