Senate’s Moment of Truth on GATT

One down, one to go. Now that the House of Representatives has approved the world trade agreement, the decisive vote in the Senate is scheduled for Thursday.

Ratification of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade is crucial to maintaining America’s leadership in a world where growing international consensus on the imperative of free trade is helping to shape the politics of the post-Cold War era. Fortunately, key Senate Republicans have thrown their support behind GATT; a bipartisan effort is needed to pass the trade agreement, which took seven years to craft. “It is not a Republican agreement or a Democratic one. It is an American agreement designed to benefit all the American people in every region of our country and from every walk of life,” President Clinton correctly noted this week.

The GATT agreement, which provides trading rules that cover agriculture and services for the first time, would gradually reduce tariffs over the years. Expanding trade would boost the American economy, jobs and exports. Under the agreement, the World Trade Organization would be the successor organization to GATT.

One problem with the WTO is that too many of its proceedings are to be closed to the public and the press; Washington must insist on more sunshine.

The anxiety presaging the GATT vote is comparable to that which preceded the congressional vote on the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada--an agreement that is working nicely. GATT should prove to be an even bigger advance for the United States.