General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade ELECTRONIC COMMERCE Washington in duty-free move The US is seeking to extend the duty-free status of international online transactions to protect the development of global electronic commerce, the Clinton administration said yesterday. Susan Esserman, deputy US trade representative, said the US wanted the World Trade Organization to agree "at the earliest possible date" to extend the current moratorium on customs duties for electronic trade. In testimony to the Senate foreign relations sub-committee on Europe, Ms Esserman said duty-free cyberspace was particularly valuable to US software companies that were seeking to distribute their products electronically. The US is also looking for WTO members to affirm that electronic commerce is subject to existing rules and agreements, and should not face "unnecessary regulatory barriers to trade". However Ms Esserman said "more time and work are necessary" before electronic goods could be subject to final classification under WTO rules. Electronic commerce in the US is forecast to grow to $1,300bn by 2003, while in India it is expected to grow by $15bn within two years. Richard Wolffe, Washington Protectionism, it seems, is always with us and it is useful to examine the intermittent attempts made to establish rules for its containment. This book is one such examination, on the conception, birth, and early years of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT); it is restricted to the years 1940--53. It is the work of an historian but one at the political, rather than economic, end of the spectrum. The heavy emphasis throughout is on the American role within an essentially Anglo-American tussle. The argument is that although trade was a relatively small proportion of US output it was used for political and diplomatic purposes. The general thrust is that the US was keen on a new liberal order and determined to break the British empire's preferential tr...
