The disputewas fueled by a personalityclashbetweenIndiantradeministerKamalNathandU. S. counterpartSusanSchwab, say trade officials from the EU, U. S. and WTO.
"The United States must be in the game and not on the sidelines, as other nations negotiate deals that disadvantage our businesses, farmers, ranchers and service providers, " says Bush's trade representative, SusanSchwab.
In pitching the very same bilateral trade agreements two and three years ago that the business community is pitching today, then-USTR SusanSchwab liked to remind Congress that the United States had an aggregate trade surplus with the countries with whom the Bush administration had concluded free trade agreements, as though that were the appropriate success metric.