Federal Triangle

China's Long March

U.S. membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) has proven to be a good thing. To witness wacko demonstrators (unionists, environmentalists, and protectionists) in Seattle last November and in Washington in April, prompted reassessment of what has happened under WTO and what the future holds, especially with China.

In December 1994, the WTO experiment was launched and it should be finally accepted in Congress by 3 July 2000, depending on political winds. For the U.S., the world's largest importer and exporter, average tariffs are now 2.6% and trade accounts for 25% of GDP (13% of world consumption or sixteen times the 1950s volume). Global foreign direct investment (FDI) has grown from $206 to $827 billion in the 1990s with 80% of that sum placed in industrialized nations. The WTO will be fully implemented by 2005 and should increase global income by over $200 billion and for the U.S. by $27 to $37 billion annually.