“Champion of Free Trade” Award

Remarks by Lee R. Raymond

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

NFTC Award – New York City

November 10, 2003

I am truly delighted to be recognized as the recipient of the “Champion of Free Trade” award. In past years this award has been given to several prominent figures in the movement for a more open and liberal trading world. I am honored to be asked to stand among them.

The National Foreign Trade Council itself has much to be proud of. For nearly 90 years the NFTC has been a strong proponent of more open trade, and the fundamental wisdom of that advocacy is reflected in the enormous expansion of the world’s prosperity.

Yet this is also a challenging time for those of us who support increasingly liberal global trade and investment policies.

The Doha round in Cancun provided a stark reminder of the enormous obstacles that must be overcome if trade and investment liberalization is to continue. Governments were unable to find common ground and it remains unclear when or even if a major trade liberalization round can be reinitiated.

In Cancun, public advocacy groups were again active in their opposition to trade and investment liberalization. Their arguments may well have influenced some government representatives, and their opposition represents an ongoing challenge to further liberalization.

And of course, much has been said publicly about the need for China to advance reforms if it is to faithfully implement the commitments it made when it joined the World Trade Organization. This was the subject of a lengthy letter to President Bush from the President’s Export Council, of which I am a member. Achieving reforms in the areas mentioned in the letter are fundamental to expanding one of the world’s largest and growing markets.

So we continue to face a challenging environment in which to pursue trade and investment liberalization, with opposition coming from some commercial sectors, a number of NGOs and from countries slow or even unwilling to progress the changes needed to achieve the wider economic benefits from a more open and liberal system.

But the challenges should motivate rather than discourage us.

There will clearly be a lot of discussion about what advocates of continued liberalization should do next.  I would suggest a number of steps are needed.

The first step, it seems to me, is to ensure we prevent further erosion in the trade and investment system that has been painstakingly created over many decades.

As one example, we should be vigilant when countries are suggested as possible targets of sanctions. The NFTC has long understood this and has spoken out against the imposition of unilateral economic sanctions as a foreign policy weapon.

The next task is to continue progress on the series of bilateral or regional free trade agreements that are in the pipeline, or are being considered.

Following on the recently approved agreements with Chile and Singapore are bilateral negotiations with Australia, Morocco, South Africa and Bahrain. And several other countries are now in line for possible negotiations, including Thailand, Colombia, Peru, Panama, New Zealand and Sri Lanka.

Regional agreements underway include one for the Americas in general and Central America more specifically.

There has clearly been some controversy over the wisdom of bilateral and regional trade agreements, but that debate must now be viewed in the context of the outcome of Cancun. If multilateral avenues prove unachievable in the near term, bilateral and regional agreements are a sensible approach to further liberalization.

And in pursuing bilateral or regional agreements, we should maintain a firm position with regard to the importance of investment protection, particularly through provisions such as the ability of companies to seek international arbitration of any disputes that may arise.

By saying this I am not advocating that we give up on a truly multilateral initiative. There are still very good arguments for the broadest possible agreements on liberalizing trade, and there are very good reasons to include in such agreements issues related to government procurement, investment rules, and the like. It’s just that such omnibus agreements are very difficult to conclude successfully because the issues are so diverse and the countries participating are so numerous. Bringing a truly multilateral agreement into being may require some institutional changes in the way such agreements are achieved, and that in itself will take a while, perhaps a long while.

Still and all, we must not lose sight of the fundamentals. Trade and investment rules are being liberalized, however slow the process may appear, and attempts to backslide are in most cases being successfully resisted. This is the basic reality.

And one of the reasons for this continued progress is the exceptional work that has been and is continuing to be done by the National Foreign Trade Council and the groups allied to it in the common cause of freer trade.

That is why I am proud to have been associated with the NFTC for so long, and both proud and honored that you have chosen to recognize me for my involvement in the important mission of this group.

Thank you.

Remarks of

The Honorable John D. Negroponte

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations

Keynote Speaker

at the National Foreign Trade Council

2003 World Trade Dinner

November 10, 2003

Thank you very much for that kind introduction.

I’m delighted to be here again at the National Foreign Trade Council’s annual dinner—an event that has become a welcome and elegant New York tradition.  Diana and I were here as guests two years ago, and I’m honored that you have asked me to address you this evening.

Before proceeding to the heart of my remarks,  I’d like to acknowledge the NFTC leadership, including its board of directors; its chairman, Michael Jordan; its president, Bill Reinsch and NFTC’s hardworking staff including my former colleague, Anne Alonzo.  Anne worked with me in Mexico city to help ensure the successful negotiation of NAFTA while I served as U.S. Ambassador to Mexico.  

For almost a century, of course, American business has used the NFTC to champion global commerce and open foreign markets to American trade and investment.  

Your fundamental belief – that America’s values and interests require active involvement in world affairs by an engaged private sector—has sustained you and the American economy through some stiff challenges and tough times.  The fact that you have seen more ups than downs proves that you have been, and remain, 100% right. 

There is no better, or even plausible, alternative to American business doing its utmost to shape an increasingly globalized world according to the principles of a free marketplace.

This is good for the United States in more ways than I can enumerate.  It is good for American investors; it is good for American workers; and it is good for our broader national ability to promote peace, security, and stability—in a word, democracy—abroad.

 As we seek to advance the full range of U.S. interests at the UN, therefore, I want to recognize the substantial contributions U.S. business and the National Foreign Trade Council make to America’s standing in the world every day of the week and every week of the year.

A cornerstone of U.S. involvement in the UN is promoting fundamental freedoms, and one of the most basic catalysts of economic growth and development in the developing world is trade liberalization—allowing free markets to work to create jobs and opportunity for all elements of society.  That is a cardinal principle of the president’s millennium challenge account, which will enhance core development assistance fifty percent by fiscal year 2006. It is also the foundation of what the NFTC has advocated for almost 90 years.

In this regard, I thank you for your leadership of business coalitions supporting free trade agreements between the U.S. and Morocco and the Southern Africa Customs Union. These FTAs are a priority of the administration.  Business support is vital to their successful negotiation.

Here let me note that Morocco’s Ambassador to the United States, His Excellency Aziz Mekouar, is with us tonight.  Mr. Ambassador, you deserve a special round of applause for your leadership in the U.S.-Morocco free trade agreement negotiations.

The NFTC itself deserves high praise for its important work on the WTO Doha Development Agenda. Your leadership in pushing all nations to seek bold outcomes will increase economic opportunity everywhere, especially in parts of the world that need it most.

This is enormously important to us at the UN, where we have worked hard to build a strong partnership to fight famine.  As I noted in a speech before the UN Economic and Social Council in Geneva last June, over 800 million people are malnourished around the globe.  Nearly 80% of these hungry souls are women and children.  This is intolerable.  Answers have to be found, and found quickly.

The administration believes that increased agricultural productivity is a critical component of fighting poverty and hunger. As a consequence, we took action last year when we rolled out the “initiative to end hunger in Africa,” augmenting funding for African agriculture by 25%. 

The U.S. is pleased that the African Union Heads of State and Government are addressing the critical agricultural and rural development sectors.  Our commitment to implementing the initiative to end hunger in Africa rests on the recognition that success requires sustained investments in agriculture-based strategies, programs, and policies, in conjunction with improvements in health, education, infrastructure, environment, and public policy management.

Science and technology, in particular, offer tremendous potential for increasing productivity and income for the poor without further degradation of the environment.  Biotechnology, for example, is capable of boosting the nutritional value of foods, increasing crop yields, reducing pesticide use, making crops disease and drought resistant, generating income in rural areas, and even vaccinating infants against diphtheria, tetanus and measles.

Sadly, some in the world use campaigns of misinformation and fear in an attempt to squelch this promising technology’s usage.  In our view, decisions about food safety should be based on scientific fact, not political conjecture or public hysteria.

I therefore applaud the NFTC’s leadership in bringing together business groups concerned about the growing use of non-science based risk regulations as disguised protectionist trade barriers. Your efforts to make sure that sound science remains the benchmark for international trade regulation are enormously helpful in keeping hope alive for the world’s malnourished millions.

Another important feature of the president’s Millennium Challenge Account is its emphasis on transparency in government and fighting corruption.  I know NFTC shares his concern, so I am pleased to highlight for you last month’s adoption by the General Assembly of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption.

Like other anti-crime treaties before it, the new convention establishes commitments to criminalize certain undesirable and harmful conduct – in this case, corrupt actions such as bribery, embezzlement, and money laundering.  But the convention does not stop there.  It also requires that governments take action in a number of areas – for example in public procurement, public financial management, and in regulating their public officials — that will help prevent corruption from happening in the first place.

This is vital not only to the rule of law, but to the fundamental confidence citizens must have for representative government and private enterprise to succeed.

Corruption and democracy are incompatible; corruption and economic prosperity are incompatible; and corruption and equal opportunity are incompatible.

But our work at the UN and NFTC’s efforts are compatible, and so I am sure we can count on your support for the new convention just as we count on you to keep making the case for free trade and scientific and technological innovation.

I’d like to conclude my remarks this evening by noting that even as we face critical challenges in places like Iraq, we must always remember that real peace, real freedom, and real opportunity are ultimately created through commerce, once the guns have been silenced. 

Men and women living ordinary lives do the most extraordinary things.  Our soldiers in Iraq know this.  They are making incalculable sacrifices so that Iraqis—and all the citizens of the Middle East—can join the rest of us who rejoice in the blessings of an ordinary life, giving them the chance to rebuild their destroyed institutions and fix their broken economy.

This is where the NFTC’s policies and initiatives come in.

 By helping develop a world built on free market principles, you are doing nothing less than helping develop a world built on freedom itself—and a free world will be a peaceful, well-fed, and well-educated world as well.

Again, I appreciate the opportunity to speak here this evening, and I am grateful for your support of what America is trying to accomplish at the United Nations.

Thank you very much.

NFTC award recognizes Lee Raymond’s leadership in advancing open trade and investment

New York, NY – Continuing a proud tradition, the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) today announced its “World Trade Award” winner, Lee R. Raymond, Chairman and CEO of Exxon Mobil Corporation.  Raymond will receive the award at the NFTC’s annual World Trade Dinner on November 10, 2003, in New York City.

“With more than 40 years as a top business executive for a global commercial leader, ExxonMobil’s Lee Raymond exemplifies the spirit of the NFTC World Trade Award.  His tireless efforts to advance an open and rules based world trading system make him the natural choice for such an honor.  The NFTC is proud of its over 60-year association with the Exxon Mobil Corporation, and we are honored to give our World Trade Award to the company’s renowned leader,” said Michael Jordan, Chairman of the NFTC and Chairman & CEO of EDS.

This year’s NFTC World Trade Award Committee, chaired by Rick Fuest of Active International, chose Mr. Raymond for the award based on his leadership in advancing global commerce.  In addition, all nominees for the award must be respected in the community for building consensus and promoting the benefits of open trade and investment.  Dating from 1937, NFTC’s World Trade Award was established by the Dollar Family of San Francisco in memory of Captain Robert Dollar, pioneer in American shipping and world trade and a charter member of the National Foreign Trade Council. 

The Award has been given to 47 Americans, including Government officials, industrialists, bankers, and shipping, publishing and association leaders.  Last year, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Don Evans accepted the award.  Other past winners include Cordell Hull, Secretary of State, awarded in 1938; George Schultz (Bechtel), awarded in 1974; David Rockefeller (Chase Manhattan Bank), awarded in 1964; and William E. Brock (United States Trade Representative), awarded in 1982.

Lee Raymond continues the tradition of esteemed World Trade Award nominees with a storied career in global business.  Before the merger of Exxon and Mobil on November 30, 1999, Mr. Raymond was chairman and chief executive officer of Exxon Corporation.  A Ph.D. in chemical engineering, Mr. Raymond joined Exxon in 1963 and has served in various capacities for the corporation in his four decades there.

Mr. Raymond will accept the NFTC award on November 10 alongside United States Ambassador to the U.N. John D. Negroponte, the keynote speaker at the World Trade Dinner.

The National Foreign Trade Council is a leading business organization advocating a rules-based world economy. Founded in 1914 by a group of American companies that supported an open world trading system, the NFTC now serves more than 500 member companies through its offices in Washington and New York.