This is an excerpt from the Summers speech Q&A in Washington on July 17 (from Federal News Service).
Q I'm Steve Charnovitz of George Washington University. Thank you for that great presentation and for your excellent work over the last several months.
My question is about trade policy. You didn't say much in your talk about trade policy, and I'm wondering whether the administration thinks that trade policy is part of rescuing and rebuilding the U.S. economy. You did say at the end of the speech that you want the U.S. economy to be -- or the administration wants the economy to be more export-oriented. So does the administration therefore favor sending the pending -- three pending free trade agreements to the Congress so that they can be approved and help promote exports?
MR. SUMMERS: Somehow I had a feeling that I wouldn't get in and out of the Peterson Institute -- (laughter) -- without that question being asked.
The president's made very clear his commitment to an open trading system. He's made it clear with his insistence that the stimulus bill be WTO-compliant. He's made it clear in talking about climate legislation that he is very much aware of the dangers of protectionism. He joined the G-20 leaders and the G-8 leaders, more recently, in making clear a commitment to maintaining and moving forward on openness during this period.
There are particular issues with respect to each of the regional -- each of the agreements that you referred to that need to be worked through. But at the appropriate point on the political calendar, if the appropriate steps can be taken, we would very much like to see those agreements completed, as we would very much like to see the Doha Round brought to a successful conclusion.
At the same time, I think it's very important to recognize what has to be top priority right now, which is resisting -- and there are reasons for concern in many parts of the world -- steps back towards economic nationalism.
That's why the president has been very committed to increasing our efforts to enforce existing trade remedies and to pursue -- and to pursue issues of violation at the WTO. That's why we have been very focused as an administration on supporting exports and assured that trade finance was a major -- was a major subject in the context of the G-20 and the G-8 discussions.
But I think one does have to look at the numbers, Steve. And I think what you see when you look at the numbers is that there's been a very substantial, almost -- unprecedented contraction in trade in the last six to nine months, and that it is very substantially explained -- some people would say totally explained, some people would say there's a residual, but everybody would agree dominantly explained -- by the global macroeconomic contraction.
And so for any friend of trade, the most important issue right now has to be achieving economic expansion, and as we achieve economic expansion, do so in a cooperative way. And I think the president has made an important contribution in that regard by putting the growth strategy questions at the center of the G-20 agenda in London and, of course, in Pittsburgh in September.
