GMF - The German Marshall Fund of the United States - Strengthening Transatlantic Cooperation

Later this month, trade may have its day in the spotlight when, if all goes according to plan, Congress passes the long-pending U.S. free-trade agreements with Korea, Colombia, and Panama. Then the press of more immediate concerns - unemployment, spending - are likely to consign trade to the attic once again.

This would be a mistake. The U.S. cannot afford to forgo an aggressive job-creating trade policy. In 2009, exports directly accounted for 8.5 million jobs, not an insignificant number. But that was roughly the same number as in 1999. "U.S. employment growth will require a much stronger performance in the tradable sectors," concluded a recent Council on Foreign Relations task force report on U.S. trade and investment policy.

But that could prove easier said than done. In the first half of 2011, governments took 134 actions that discriminated against foreign commercial interests, according to the Global Trade Alert, an assessment of trade actions coordinated by the Centre for Economic Policy Research, a London think tank. "If experience proves any guide," said Simon J. Evenett, coordinator of the trade alert, "the totals will be substantially increased over time" as more evidence of such protectionism surfaces.

The best way to counteract these trends would be to finish the long-deadlocked Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations. But Doha is stymied by the justifiable unwillingness of the U. S. to eliminate its remaining industrial tariffs without reciprocal action by China, India, and Brazil. Trade ministers meet in Geneva in December to take stock of the negotiations. They should acknowledge the obvious and declare Doha dead. And then move on.

The Obama administration should focus its future trade energies on a jobs and growth initiative anchored in other trade initiatives.

The American people have long been told that trade will benefit them, both as consumers and workers. But they aren't buying it.

Going forward, trade initiatives can no longer simply be targeted on freer markets abroad, under the assumption they will somehow benefit the United States. Future trade policy needs to aim for reciprocity and a balance of benefits and be far more focused on tangible outcomes: jobs and growth.

On the margins of trade talks last week in Geneva, a number of nations expressed interest in a services-only trade agreement among like-minded nations. This could aim to make it easier to export services and to set up service providers in other nations. It might include banking, insurance, accounting, construction, and education. Such a deal is permitted under World Trade Organization rules. And the benefits created would not have to be extended to nations that refused to open their markets in a reciprocal fashion. Nor could small nations with little interest in a services deal block progress, as they have done so far in the Doha Round.

In November at the APEC summit in Hawaii, the White House hopes to announce the outline of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade pact with a group of Pacific-rim nations. The outline should be judged by whether it will boost U.S. employment and incomes in concrete, verifiable ways.

Other opportunities exist to link trade more directly to jobs and growth. China promised to join the government procurement code of the World Trade Organization a decade ago, but has failed to follow through. As a result, trade experts think foreigners are missing out on about $120 billion in possible sales. Washington needs to join with Brussels and Tokyo to lean on Beijing to open bidding for government contracts and to threaten retaliation if China continues to drag its feet.

And there is low-hanging trade fruit to be harvested in Europe. A study by the European Centre for International Political Economy estimates that simply eliminating all remaining tariffs on goods across the Atlantic could add up to $82 billion a year to the U.S. economy. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has called for the elimination of all barriers to goods traded between Europe and the United States as a first step toward a full free-trade agreement. And on Sept. 27, the European Parliament called for a "comprehensive Transatlantic Growth and Jobs Initiative, which would include plans for the removal of remaining non-tariff barriers to trade and investment by 2020." The Obama administration should adopt this goal as its own.

Conventional political wisdom suggests presidents don't win votes talking about trade, they only lose them. But these are desperate economic times and the current resident of the Oval Office is in grave danger of losing his job. He needs a political narrative focused on jobs and growth. Trade can be part of that message.

Photo by WisconsinJobsNow.