Obama's trade pointman vows strict enforcement

US President Barack Obama's top trade envoy nominee vowed Monday to push for strict enforcement of global trade rules even as countries were grappling with financial turmoil and a sharp economic downturn.

He said that the first order of business for the administration on trade is to ensure "the strongest possible enforcement" of world trade rules," Ron Kirk, an ex-mayor, said at his confirmation hearing in the Senate.

He said his other priorities were to work with US trading partners to advance the long delayed Doha Round of the global trade negotiations and addressing issues related to implementation of pending free trade agreements with Panama, Colombia and South Korea.

Kirk said the US Congress wanted the "referees" at the World Trade Organization, the global trade watchdog, "to call a foul when the rules were broken.

"And I agree," he told the Senators, who would have to vote for his confirmation.

Kirk will be the first African-American to hold the cabinet-level position of US Trade Representative USTR, if confirmed.

Kirk, an ex-partner in the Dallas office of a Houston-based law and lobbying firm, had campaigned for free trade when he was Dallas mayor from 1995 to 2001.

He is tipped to be confirmed despite revelations during the vetting process that there were a number of errors in his tax returns that will require him to pay about 10,000 dollars in back taxes.









Kasahara