The Senate has confirmed Charlene Barshefsky as US Trade Representative in a 99-1 vote, ensuring that proponents of free trade will have a seasoned ally during global telecom negotiations.
Barshefsky, who has been serving as acting trade representative since April, negotiated a World Trade Organization treaty last month in which 68 countries agreed to open up their telecommunications markets. Barshefsky also worked on the Information Technology Agreement in Singapore in December, which promises to abolish import duties on computers, software, semiconductors, and telecom equipment by 2000.
"We would give her very high marks for being a tough negotiator," said Harris N. Miller, president of Information Technology Association of America. "Did she get absolutely everything we wanted? No. But no negotiator can."
Barshefsky's confirmation Wednesday was delayed because the Senate had to approve a waiver of a 1995 law barring former representatives of foreign governments in trade disputes with the United States from serving as trade chief. Before joining the Clinton administration, Barshefsky worked at a Washington law firm and represented the Canadian lumber industry in a trade dispute. Before becoming acting trade representative, Barshefsky worked for three years as deputy to former trade chief Mickey Kantor.
US trade representatives have become key players on the international political scene with the rise of the global economy and with treaties such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (which reduced trade barriers worldwide and created the WTO) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (which established a free-trade zone including Mexico, Canada, and the United States).
Electronic commerce will likely be at the forefront of the new trade chief's agenda. This spring, the White House task force's blueprint on intellectual property, encryption, censorship, Internet taxation, and other e-commerce issues will likely be approved by President Clinton, and the implementation of many of those guidelines will fall under Barshefsky's watch.
Barshefsky has said that other top priorities include the addition of Chile into NAFTA and China's admission into the WTO.
China, with one-fifth of the world's population and only a skeletal information infrastructure, poses a special challenge. Beijing is pressing for admission into the world trade body, but US concerns over that country's policies on censorship and intellectual property have yet to be resolved.
Robert Hollyman, president of the Business Software Alliance, said he thinks highly of Barshefsky's efforts so far in trying to eliminate Chinese counterfeiting of CD-ROMs.
"She has been tireless in her efforts to represent US workers," Hollyman said. "She has consistently been tough, persuasive, and successful in negotiating with the Chinese."
