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    Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Set to Become W.T.O.’s First Female Leader

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    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNgozi Okonjo-Iweala Set to Become W.T.O.’s First Female LeaderHer path was cleared after Yoo Myung-hee, the South Korean trade minister, announced she was withdrawing from consideration to head the World Trade Organization.Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of Nigeria is poised to become the World Trade Organization’s first Black and first female leader.Credit…Martial Trezzini/EPA, via ShutterstockFeb. 5, 2021Updated 6:08 p.m. ETNgozi Okonjo-Iweala, an economist and former finance minister of Nigeria, appears set to become the next director general of the World Trade Organization, with the Biden administration announcing its “strong support” for her candidacy on Friday. She would be the first woman and the first African national to lead the organization.Yoo Myung-hee, the South Korean trade minister who was also a finalist for the role, said on Friday that she planned to withdraw herself from consideration, leaving the path open for Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, The Associated Press reported.The two women were announced as finalists for the trade organization’s top job in October, whittled down from a group of eight candidates over several months, with Dr. Okonjo-Iweala emerging as the person with the broadest support, the W.T.O. said at the time.But because the organization, a trade-regulation body that has existed in its current form since 1995, requires that none of its 164 members oppose the choice, President Donald J. Trump, who supported Ms. Yoo and said he would not back the candidacy of Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, was able to hold up the process, according to the W.T.O. statement.In a statement on Friday, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said Dr. Okonjo-Iweala “is widely respected for her effective leadership and has proven experience managing a large international organization with a diverse membership.”“It is particularly important to underscore that two highly qualified women made it to the final round of consideration for the position of W.T.O. director general — the first time that any woman has made it to this stage in the history of the institution,” the statement said.The New WashingtonLive UpdatesUpdated Feb. 5, 2021, 6:53 p.m. ETA Lincoln Project co-founder resigns after allegations that a former colleague sent unsolicited, lurid messages to young men.Biden won’t restore the American Bar Association’s role in vetting judges.Pence accepts two fellowships from conservative groups — and starts a podcast.Dr. Okonjo-Iweala served twice as Nigeria’s finance minister, spent 25 years at the World Bank as a development economist and now is the chairwoman of the Center for Global Development, according to the center’s website.Molly Toomey, a spokeswoman for Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, said on Friday that she “congratulates Yoo Myung-hee on her long campaign and welcomes South Korea’s commitment to rebuilding and enhancing multilateralism.”“Dr. Okonjo-Iweala is eager to focus on the many needed reforms at the W.T.O.,” Ms. Toomey said. “She is humbled by the support she has received from W.T.O. members and of champions in Nigeria and other parts of the world.”The search for someone to fill the top job started after the former director general, Roberto Azevêdo of Brazil, announced last May that he would be leaving the job a year early, citing personal reasons and a desire to give W.T.O. members a head start on choosing his replacement. He left on Aug. 31 without a successor, The A.P. reported.If approved, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala would enter an organization that has been crippled by actions of the Trump administration, which had refused to approve nominees to fill vacancies on a panel charged with resolving trade disputes.Mr. Trump defied the organization’s principles by starting a trade war with China. He also threatened to pull the United States out of the trade body, which he repeatedly accused of unfair treatment of the United States.Global trade has been severely affected by the coronavirus pandemic, and Ms. Toomey said that Dr. Okonjo-Iweala was eager to conclude the selection process so the trade group could “turn its focus to the Covid-19 pandemic and global economic recovery.”In its statement, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said the Biden administration “looks forward to working with a new W.T.O. director general to find paths forward to achieve necessary substantive and procedural reform of the W.T.O.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Ezra F. Vogel, Eminent Scholar of China and Japan, Dies at 90

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    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyEzra F. Vogel, Eminent Scholar of China and Japan, Dies at 90A longtime scholar at Harvard, Professor Vogel wrote books that helped shape how the world viewed the two ascendant economic powers.Ezra Vogel’s writings over six decades established him as a giant in the study of China and Japan and earned him wide-ranging influence.Credit…Ben RosserPublished More

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    A Top House Democrat Prods Biden to Reopen E.U. Trade Talks

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    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyA Top House Democrat Prods Biden to Reopen E.U. Trade TalksThe chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee countered the president-elect’s pledge to focus first on domestic priorities.Representative Richard E. Neal, who leads the Ways and Means Committee, said a trade deal with the European Union would help restrain China.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesAna Swanson and Dec. 11, 2020Updated 4:56 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — The chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee urged the incoming administration to renew trade negotiations with the European Union, countering a pledge by President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. to postpone any new trade talks until after the United States has made significant domestic investments.The statement on Friday, from Representative Richard E. Neal, Democrat of Massachusetts, raises the question of whether congressional pressure could persuade the Biden administration to take a more aggressive approach to trade negotiations with close allies.Mr. Biden has downplayed expectations for new trade negotiations early in his term, saying he wants to first wrest control of the pandemic and make substantial investments in American industries like energy, biotech and artificial intelligence.“I’m not going to enter any new trade agreement with anybody until we have made major investments here at home and in our workers,” Mr. Biden said in a New York Times interview last week.But since congressional opposition would be one of the main obstacles to any new trade agreement, the support of key Democrats could be strong motivation for initiating talks.In an interview, Mr. Neal suggested that reaching a trade agreement with the European Union would help deal with the rising economic threat from China, which has used hefty subsidies, state-owned companies and other practices to dominate industries and challenge the trade rules long embraced in the West.Mr. Neal called Mr. Biden’s approach “fine and fair,” but argued that pursuing E.U. trade negotiations “is part of a foreign policy challenge as it relates to China’s expansionist activities.”“I think that we should, right now, be preparing to match the aggressive nature of what China’s doing in the world,” he added.Mr. Biden would need the support of Mr. Neal and others to cement such a deal. So-called trade promotion authority, a statute that sets out guidelines for the executive branch as it negotiates trade deals and streamlines the approval process, is set to expire in July; any deals submitted to Congress after that could face a more difficult path to ratification. It’s not yet clear whether the Biden administration will petition Congress to renew the authority.Despite deep historic ties, the United States and Europe have not always had an easy trading relationship. The governments have argued for decades over tariffs, farm subsidies and food safety standards, and efforts to reach a comprehensive trade pact under both the Obama and Trump administrations were ultimately scrapped.But Mr. Biden has often spoken of the importance of strengthening American alliances, and he and his advisers have been eager to remedy ties with Europe that have been strained by President Trump’s confrontational trade approach. They also see much common ground with the European Union on issues like climate change, labor standards and consumer protections, as well as countering China’s growing geopolitical power and trade practices.Business & EconomyLatest UpdatesUpdated Dec. 11, 2020, 6:16 p.m. ETSilicon Valley giant Oracle will move its headquarters to Texas.A surprise savior for Britain’s pubs: Scotch eggs.Stocks dip as Brexit and U.S. stimulus talks remain stuck with time running out.Both governments appear eager to make progress on trade issues that have festered under the Trump administration, including spats over subsidies to the aircraft industry and plans by European countries to tax American technology giants.Those discussions would be led by Mr. Biden’s trade representative, Katherine Tai, whom the president-elect introduced on Friday as his nominee for the post. Ms. Tai is on Mr. Neal’s staff as the Ways and Means Committee’s chief trade lawyer.Mr. Neal declined to elaborate on conversations he’d had with Ms. Tai about pursuing trade deals with the European Union, but said, “I think we’re in broad agreement on the nature of the challenge.”Mr. Neal pointed to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement as a “blueprint” for new trade pacts. The accord, the successor to the North American Free Trade Agreement, was negotiated by Mr. Trump and revised by congressional Democrats, including Mr. Neal and Ms. Tai, before going into force this year.“What we were able to do with U.S.M.C.A. in terms of environment, labor standards, enforcement — I think we have some momentum,” Mr. Neal said. He said he was continuing to work to drum up support for using a European trade deal to counter China’s influence around the globe.In his statement on Friday, Mr. Neal said pursuing a trade deal with the Europe Union would be a “strategically sound choice” as the United States tried to compete economically with China and rebuild its economy from the pandemic recession.He urged the Biden administration to engage with allies in Europe and elsewhere to “formulate a strategic, far-reaching, forward-looking, robust package of programs and investments to defend against anti-competitive, anti-democratic influences of China’s policies.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Nike and Coca-Cola Lobby Against Xinjiang Forced Labor Bill

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    WASHINGTON — Nike and Coca-Cola are among the major companies and business groups lobbying Congress to weaken a bill that would ban imported goods made with forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region, according to congressional staff members and other people familiar with the matter, as well as lobbying records that show vast spending on the legislation.The bill, which would prohibit broad categories of certain goods made by persecuted Muslim minorities in an effort to crack down on human rights abuses, has gained bipartisan support, passing the House in September by a margin of 406 to 3. Congressional aides say it has the backing to pass the Senate, and could be signed into law by either the Trump administration or the incoming Biden administration.But the legislation, called the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, has become the target of multinational companies including Apple whose supply chains touch the far western Xinjiang region, as well as of business groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Lobbyists have fought to water down some of its provisions, arguing that while they strongly condemn forced labor and current atrocities in Xinjiang, the act’s ambitious requirements could wreak havoc on supply chains that are deeply embedded in China.Xinjiang produces vast amounts of raw materials like cotton, coal, sugar, tomatoes and polysilicon, and supplies workers for China’s apparel and footwear factories. Human rights groups and news reports have linked many multinational companies to suppliers there, including tying Coca-Cola to sugar sourced from Xinjiang, and documenting Uighur workers in a factory in Qingdao that makes Nike shoes.In a report issued in March, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, a bipartisan group of lawmakers, listed Nike and Coca-Cola as companies suspected of ties to forced labor in Xinjiang, alongside Adidas, Calvin Klein, Campbell Soup Company, Costco, H&M, Patagonia, Tommy Hilfiger and others.In a statement, Coca-Cola said that it “strictly prohibits any type of forced labor in our supply chain” and uses third-party auditors to closely monitor its suppliers. It also said that the COFCO Tunhe facility in Xinjiang, which supplies sugar to a local bottling facility and had been linked to allegations of forced labor by The Wall Street Journal and Chinese-language news media, “successfully completed an audit in 2019.”Greg Rossiter, the director of global communications at Nike, said the company “did not lobby against” the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act but instead had “constructive discussions” with congressional staff aides aimed at eliminating forced labor and protecting human rights.Asked about the allegations of forced labor, Nike referred to a statement in March in which it said that it did not source products from Xinjiang and that it had confirmed that its suppliers were not using textiles or yarn from the region.Nike said that the Qingdao factory had stopped hiring new workers from Xinjiang in 2019, and that an independent audit confirmed there were no longer employees from there at the facility. (According to a report published in March by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute that cited state media, the factory employed around 800 Uighur workers at the end of 2019 and produced more than seven million pairs of shoes for Nike each year.)China’s vast campaign of suppressing and forcibly assimilating Uighurs and other minorities in Xinjiang has attracted the scorn of politicians and consumers around the world.But for many companies, fully investigating and eliminating any potential ties to forced labor there has been difficult, given the opacity of Chinese supply chains and the limited access of auditors to a region where the Chinese government tightly restricts people’s movements.The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act would require companies sending goods to the United States to scrutinize those supply chains, or perhaps abandon Chinese suppliers altogether. It would impose high standards, barring imports of goods made “in whole or in part” in Xinjiang unless companies prove to customs officials that their products were not made with forced labor.The bill also targets so-called poverty alleviation and pairing programs that ship Muslims from impoverished areas to work in factories elsewhere, which human rights groups say are often coercive. Companies would be required to disclose information on their ties to Xinjiang to the Securities and Exchange Commission.Richard A. Mojica, a lawyer at Miller & Chevalier, said that for many companies, convincing the authorities that they have no involvement with forced labor could take months. Firms were already responding by trying to find sources for products outside Xinjiang, he said.“Rebutting a presumption of forced labor is going to be a very challenging endeavor,” he said.Companies and groups lobbying on the bill have been pushing for various revisions, including easing disclosure requirements, people familiar with the conversations said.Apple, which has extensive business ties to China, has also lobbied to limit some provisions of the bill, said two congressional staff members and another person familiar with the matter.Disclosure forms show that Apple paid Fierce Government Relations, a firm led by former staff aides to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and President George W. Bush, $90,000 to lobby on issues including Xinjiang-related legislation in the third quarter. Apple’s lobbying was previously reported by The Washington Post.Apple also paid outside firms this year to lobby on another bill, the Uyghur Forced Labor Disclosure Act of 2020.Apple disputed the claim that it had tried to weaken the legislation, saying it supported efforts to strengthen American regulations and believes the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act should become law.According to a document viewed by The New York Times, Apple’s suggested edits to the bill included extending some deadlines for compliance, releasing certain information about supply chains to congressional committees rather than to the public, and requiring Chinese entities to be “designated by the United States government” as helping to surveil or detain Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang.In its March report, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute identified Apple and Nike among 82 companies that potentially benefited, directly or indirectly, from abusive labor transfer programs tied to Xinjiang.That report said that O-Film Technology, a contractor for Apple, Microsoft, Google and other companies, received at least 700 Uighur workers in a program that was expected to “gradually alter their ideology.” It tied other Apple suppliers, including Foxconn Technology, to similar employment programs.Apple said in a statement that it had the strongest supplier code of conduct in its industry and that it regularly assessed suppliers, including with surprise audits.“Looking for the presence of forced labor is part of every supplier assessment we conduct and any violations of our policies carry immediate consequences, including business termination,” the statement said. “Earlier this year, we conducted a detailed investigation with our suppliers in China and found no evidence of forced labor on Apple production lines and we are continuing to monitor this closely.”Lobbying disclosures show that companies have spent heavily to sway Congress on Xinjiang-related legislation, though they reveal nothing about their specific requests.In the first three quarters of 2020, Nike spent $920,000 on in-house lobbying of Congress and other federal agencies. Disclosures do not break down expenditures by topic, but show Nike lobbied on matters including physical education grants, taxes and climate change, as well as the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.Nike also paid outside firms like Cornerstone Government Affairs, Ogilvy, Capitol Counsel, GrayRobinson, American Continental Group, DiNino Associates and Empire Consulting Group more than $400,000 this year to lobby on issues including the act.Mr. Rossiter said that Nike had these firms on retainer long before the Xinjiang legislation was introduced, and that the company actively worked with lobbying firms to engage Congress on a variety of subjects it cares about.Coca-Cola has also invested heavily, spending $4.68 million in the first three quarters of 2020 on in-house lobbying and hiring Empire Consulting Group and Sidley Austin to lobby on issues including the act.Coca-Cola said in a statement that it complies with all laws associated with its political activities and has “adopted best-in-class disclosures practices.”The U.S. Chamber of Commerce declined to comment on lobbying, instead providing a letter it sent to Congress in November with seven other industry groups. The letter said the groups had long been working to combat forced labor, and urged the government to take a comprehensive approach that would mobilize the administration, Congress and foreign governments to address the problem, in addition to industry. More