space Press Releases, News Stories

by Robert McClure, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Fifteen organizations paid for ads to be posted on 90 buses and 14 billboards in the Seattle area. The theme of the ad campaign: "WTO: What are we trading away?" Each group's ad answers the question differently, most with another question.

"Our forests?" asks the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund.

"Worker's Rights?" says the AFL-CIO.

"Democracy?" asks the Asia Pacific Environmental Exchange.

"Endangered species?" queries the Sea Turtles Restoration Project.

The $40,000 campaign is designed to persuade Seattle residents to "put down the free trade pompoms and put on our thinking caps," said Jim Puckett of the Asia Pacific Environmental Exchange, which conceived the campaign.

"Why we did it, in a word, is education. It's time we all learned a lot more about the WTO," Puckett said at a news conference yesterday. He said the groups hope the ads "will lead to (viewers) having a thought or two, and then that thought, like a seed, will grow."

Because the ads raise questions, rather than stating facts, they defy attempts at labeling them as true or false. Many topics featured in the simple, sound-bite ads are weighty and complicated. For example, it's highly unlikely the United States could be forced by the WTO to abandon its system of representative democracy, as the Asia Pacific Environmental Exchange ad suggests.

But it's true this country might have to yield a bit of its sovereignty in exchange for WTO membership. The United States and other industrialized countries have been forced to modify some laws and regulations to comply with WTO edicts aimed at preventing surreptitious protectionism.

An instance of this frequently cited by activists involves a U.S. law that only allows shrimp to be imported here if it has been caught in nets equipped with escape hatches that allow endangered sea turtles to escape if accidentally ensnared. U.S. shrimpers must use the nets.

Southeast Asian nations challenged the law and won a WTO ruling. A key point was that the United States gave Caribbean shrimpers three years to install turtle-protecting devices, while Asians were allowed only four months. The rules are now being re-worked.

Some of the ads' suggestions are clearly open to question. Take the first of the billboards, which went up yesterday above a strip of small businesses and motor-court motels on Aurora Avenue in Fremont. It asks: "What are we trading away? Our forests?"

It's true that environmentalists are genuinely anxious about WTO efforts to reduce import-export taxes on wood products and lumber at its Seattle meeting. They fear this will quicken the pace of deforestation worldwide. However, to imply that the United States is "trading away its forests" is "laughable," said Chris West of the Northwest Forestry Association, a trade group. West said about two-fifths of lumber used in this country is imported.

"In the United States, we are a net importer of lumber and wood products," West said. "We're pushing more and more of our demand onto other countries."

And what of the claim that workers' rights are threatened? Ron Judd of the King County Labor Council, AFL-CIO, said the WTO tries to maximize consumer choice by minimizing production costs. Taken to its extreme, slashing production costs means taking away workers' hard-won pay and benefits, Judd said. "We have had a brief but alarming history with the WTO," Judd said. "This is not about being against trade."

"This is about fair trade. This is about trade that's good for the planet, that's good for people."