NFTC Chairman Urges Change in Trade Negotiations Mentality to Ensure Successful Future Agreements

World Trade Organization rules are no longer adequate for today’s international trade landscape, and negotiators must focus on eliminating trade barriers, boosting facilitation and streamlining regulations if upcoming trade agreements are to be successful, National Foreign Trade Council Chairman Alan Wolff said at a U.S.-Southeast Asian Capitol Hill briefing June 4. Trade agreements should “anticipate that which cannot be anticipated,” Wolff said, boiling down the "mystic" statement into seven trade goals, including tariff elimination, cross-border information freedom and intellectual property protection. Trade facilitation is also key, “even more important today than tariffs,” Wolff said. “Customs officials must stop illicit trade but manage to speed everything else across the border or just get out of the way. That is a radical but necessary change in the mindset of officials.” Negotiators should additionally focus on regulatory coherence -- conflicting regulations are “no longer an affordable luxury,” Wolff said, adding that current agreements don’t have near enough cleaning of the regulatory red tape, but at least “a start is being made.” Wolff highlighted broader global changes that affect trade and trade agreements -- such as the pace of technology and the importance of social policies. This pace of change requires governments to be agile, which is also "the one thing that governments are not good at," he said. Allowing the free flow of information, goods and services across borders is a practical way to deal with the ever-evolving trade landscape, and can be accomplished through the Trans-Pacific Partnership and trade groups like the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Wolff said.