The US President made a strong pitch for a link between trade on the onehand and core labour and environment standards but sought to dispel fearsamong the developing countries that by bringing labour concerns into thetrade debate, the protectionists in wealthy countries could usethings like wage differentials to keep the poorer markets down.

The rules must be written in such a way that "the wealthiercountries, cannot do use this as an instrument of protectionism", hestated. He said he believed that the WTO must make sure that open tradedid lift living standards and for this purpose, the US this year hadproposed the creation of a working group on trade and labour by the WTO.

The issue could not be wished away, he said. Clinton also suggested that theWTO collaborate more closely with the International Labour Organisationwhich had worked to protect human rights and to ban child labour.

"We must work to protect and to improve the environment as we expand trade,"the President said. The United States, Clinton further said, was committed to finding solutions that benefited both the economy and environment, opentrade and cutting edge clean technologies which would be the next industrialrevolution.

Clinton also stressed the i imperative need for environmentalstandards. "If we are prepared to help you finance a different path togrowth, and we can prove to you that your growth will be faster, notsmaller, that you will have more good jobs, more new technology, a broaderbase for your economy, then I do believe we ought to have those kind ofenvironmental standards", he stated.

In a further effort at proving to the developing world that the rich Westcares about their economic plight, United States Trade Representative (USTR)Charlene Barshefsky today announced to the media America's and the15-country European Union's agreement to promote an initiative for 48so-called least-developed countries (LDCs).

Under this deal, upto three-fourths of these countriesexports would be imported duty-free by the European Union and theUnited States. Barshefsky added that the European Union and the UnitedStates would try to get the other so-called Quad (four prominent membergrouping) members of the World Trade Organisation, Canada and Japan, toagree to offer similar benefits to these countries.

She further added that the United States also hoped to persuade moreadvanced developing countries to offer similar benefits to the leastdeveloped countries.

Indian officials however later strongly refuted any such suggestion andsaid that such an initiative must rest with developed countries. Even withinthe US-EU initiative, the devil as ever lies in the details.

The t rade representatives attempted to side-step a question on whetherzero-tariff access would be provided to the LDCs' textiles and apparelsexports as well.