The View from Europe
By David Jessop
 

In late September the US President, George Bush, unveiled a new strategic doctrine for the United States. 

 

The document, entitled the National Security Strategy of the United States, came in the form of a report to the US Congress. It set out in detail a policy that requires pre-emptive action to forestall hostile acts, an increase in defence spending so great and in such a manner that no other nation can rival and the creation of the ability to respond to new threats in new ways.

 

The new strategy suggests that the gravest dangers to the US and by inference to its like-minded allies in Europe and elsewhere, lie at the interface between radicalism and technology. That is to say the ability of terrorists to deploy biological, chemical, radiation based or other weapons that make use of advanced and largely western technology in ways not easy to predict or monitor. The document notes that the consequence is that the US has to develop asymmetrical military and other responses to threats that in future are less likely to be conventional and more likely to come from failed states or non-state groups that operate globally. It argues that for the first time Russia and China have similar objectives, that India can become one of the great powers of this century and that all nations should have broadly similar objectives in relation to democracy, growth and ‘freedom’ although these concepts are not defined. 

 

The strategy was billed by most of the media as the end of cold war policies. However, a reading of the document makes clear that it had been in preparation for some time and reflects many of the beliefs that the Bush administration and its senior advisers brought with them into office. In reality what it does is to de-emphasise the continuing US approach to conventional warfare, deterrence, and traditionally structured alliances while developing new capabilities to pre-emptively remove any perceived threat if necessary by unilateral or plurilateral action.

 

But away from the headline grabbing language and its uncertain moral, legal and intellectual coherence, the document has another hardly noticed side to it that it seems is now being translated into action. That is its recognition that such an approach can be extended to economic and trade relations as and when problems appear in achieving international consensus. 

 

The document, which now guides all US strategic thinking, has a chapter that focuses on economic development and the role of free trade in sustaining a US vision of global democracy. Here it is very specific. It argues for strong economic growth in Europe and Japan, greater stability in emerging markets and greater flows of investment to developing nations in order to raise living standards, lessen the possibility of instability and to create global security.

 

To promote free trade, which the Administration suggests has a positive moral value, the new US national security strategy makes clear that the US intends to seize the global initiative to ensure that trade negotiations at the WTO and in the FTAA move forward. But interestingly the document also refers to its intention to ensure that it will move ahead with bilateral free trade agreements with a mix of developed and developing countries in all regions of the world if this process is problematic. 

 

Put another way, while the end objective of the US is the creation of a world in which free trade flourishes, it sees that if rapid global consensus is not achievable another way forward may bed through what has come to be described as competitive regionalism. 

 

Placed in a hemispheric context it suggests that by granting preferential free trade agreements first to Canada and Mexico, then to Chile and subsequently to Central America, the US will induce others - Mercosur, the Caribbean, Andean nations or substantial individual nations such as Brazil - to eventually form a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). In turn this will enable the US either to step aside from multilateral negotiations at the World Trade Organisation or take, by 2007 when the Administration’s special negotiating authority ends, the Americas as a whole and other nations with which it has achieved similar agreements into the WTO on terms largely of its own making. 

 

If evidence is needed this is contained in a recent speech made by Josette Shiner, the Associate United States Trade Representative. Speaking on November 20 she made clear that that the United States believes its ability to move on multiple fronts leverages its strength. Any one nation at the WTO has, she noted, the power to hold up progress. If the Administration restricted itself to global negotiations, she said, it would be strengthening the hand of nations that may choose to block progress, granting them a veto over the core US trade agenda. She went on to place this in a security context. “We hope”, she said, “that our developing-world free trade area partners will help forge a new global coalition in support of open markets by expanding their stake in the global trading system. By encouraging such reforms, regional and bilateral trade agreements enhance relations with important allies and promote security. The U.S. free trade agenda can help fragile democracies in Central America and Southern Africa, and other developing nations.”

 

More recently Robert Zoellick, the United States Trade Representative has warned that if negotiations for an FTAA were to fail to move ahead that there was no scarcity of clients in Latin America who want to convince the US to conclude free trade agreements with them. 

 

This is not good news for the Caribbean. The piecemeal negotiation of free trade agreements is likely to disadvantage the smallest and weakest in the Caribbean and challenge fragile regionalism. Because of its vulnerability, the Caribbean needs special and different treatment within a comprehensive hemispheric agreement and in its trade relationship with Europe. It requires the support and muscle provided by larger Latin nations when it comes to negotiating with the US as its does the support of the ACP with Europe. Hemispheric and international understanding are essential if the region’s special needs are to recognised at the WTO. 

 

The new US strategic doctrine is meant to enhance security. Nothing would be more ironic than its delivery, when it comes to trade policy, having the opposite effect on its neighbours.

 

David Jessop is the Director of the Caribbean Council and can be contacted at [log in to unmask] 

December 6th, 2002




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