Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 12 • Number 42 • 10th December 2008
Obama to Pick Becerra for Top Trade Post, Officials Say
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Congressman Xavier Becerra, who has called US trade policy “broken completely” and said that he regrets having voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement, will be US President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for the country’s trade chief, media sources reported last week.
Xavier Becerra, a Democratic Congressman from California who has spent nearly 16 years on Capitol Hill, reportedly met with Obama in Chicago last Thursday to discuss the post of US trade representative (USTR). No official statements have been made, but Democratic officials speaking on the condition of anonymity have confirmed that Becerra has been offered the position, Bloomberg reported.
Becerra - the son of immigrants and the first in his family to graduate from college - is considered a rising star of the Democratic Party. The first Latino member of the House of Representatives’ Ways and Means Committee, which deals with trade, Becerra has earned a reputation for fighting hard for workers’ rights and working well with Republican rivals.
If he takes the cabinet-level USTR post, then Becerra’s responsibilities would include negotiating bilateral, regional and multilateral trade deals, as well as coordinating trade policy among the many governmental agencies that have a stake in the issue. The post could be an influential one in the Obama administration, as the president-elect has indicated that he intends to re-negotiate portions of the NAFTA and take a harder line on workers’ rights and the environment in all new trade deals (see Bridges Weekly, 5 November 2008, http://ictsd.net/i/news/bridgesweekly/32652/).
The approach that Becerra would take as USTR remains to be seen, but the votes he has cast since he joined Congress in early 1993 provide some clues as to the kind of stance he might take in handling the country’s trade policies.
Becerra’s voting record in the House of Representatives has earned him 100-percent approval ratings from both the AFL-CIO, the largest workers’ union in the United States, and the National Farmers Union. The US Chamber of Commerce, which represents business groups, has given him an approval rating of just 14 percent.
In an editorial titled “Becerra’s a bad choice for trade post,” the Los Angeles Times - the Congressman’s hometown newspaper - described him as a “dyed-in-the-wool protectionist” and said that, for the sake of the US economy, they “deeply hope” that Becerra will turn down Obama’s offer.
But the nine-term Congressman’s voting record on trade is somewhat mixed. He voted in favour of NAFTA shortly after he arrived in Washington in 1993, but he later said that he regretted that decision. And he now opposes the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) on the grounds that the deal lacks sufficient labour and environmental standards, among other concerns.
But Becerra has shown that he does not simply take a hard line on all trade issues. He joined a minority of Democrats in voting in favour of normalising trade relations with China in 2000 and backed a bilateral trade pact with Chile three years later. He also supported the US’ trade deal with Peru, which Congress approved last year, after Democratic leaders successfully negotiated stricter environment and labour standards into the agreement (see Bridges Weekly, 16 May 2007, http://ictsd.net/i/news/bridgesweekly/7751/).
His support of that agreement was somewhat qualified, though, as he explained in a speech to fellow lawmakers in November 2007:
“In this deal, while it is not perfect, we find improvements were made that for the first time in the history of this Congress will give us a chance to vote on something that says that we will treat workers as well as we treat widgets,” he said. “For me, that makes this deal worth voting for because while we would like to do much better, the perfect should not get in the way of making progress.”
But Becerra has not always sounded such a positive note on US trade policy. Two years ago, while lambasting the then-proposed (and later enacted) US free trade agreement with Oman, he took the opportunity to blast Washington’s general approach to trade deals:
“I hate to say it, but I think it’s become very obvious that our system for devising trade agreements so very important to this country’s functioning around the world, has not only broken, but is broken completely,” Becerra said in a speech on the floor of the House in 2006. “And even though we know in most cases, many of the countries, including Oman, do not have laws that protect their workers, which will mean that our workers will suffer as well, we continue to move forward with these agreements,” he said.
“It is time for a change. We need a new direction when it comes to our trade policy. Not only for our workers, but for the health of our American companies that have to compete in this world where artificially other companies and other countries are gaining advantage over us because they are not following the rules,” he said.
The Obama transition team has not said when it will announce its USTR selection. If appointed to the post and approved by the Senate, Becerra would be the second Latino member of Obama’s cabinet. New Mexico governor Bill Richardson was named the administration’s Secretary of Commerce last week.
ICTSD reporting; “Becerra’s a bad choice for trade post,” LA TIMES, 5 December 2008; “Becerra said to be offered top US trade position,” BLOOMBERG, 3 December 2008.
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He has declined the position. http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/1208/So_much_for_that.html