United States General Accounting Office

GAO General Government Division

July 1995 International Trade,

Finance, and

Competitiveness Issue

Area Plan

Fiscal Years 1995-96

GAO/IAP-95-13

Foreword

As the investigative arm of Congress and the nation’s auditor, the General

Accounting Office is charged with following the federal dollar wherever it

goes. Reflecting stringent standards of objectivity and independence, GAO’s

audits, evaluations, and investigations promote a more efficient and

cost-effective government; expose fraud, waste, abuse, and

mismanagement in federal programs; help Congress target budget

reductions; assess financial information management; and alert Congress

to developing trends that may have significant fiscal or budgetary

consequences. In fulfilling its responsibilities, GAO performs original

research and uses hundreds of databases, or creates its own when

information is unavailable elsewhere.

To ensure that GAO’s resources are directed toward the most important

issues facing Congress, each of GAO’s 35 issue areas develops a strategic

plan that describes the significance of the issues it addresses, its

objectives, and the focus of its work. Each issue area relies heavily on

input from congressional committees, agency officials, and subject-matter

experts in developing its strategic plan.

The International Trade, Finance, and Competitiveness issue area covers

the Export-Import Bank of the United States, the Office of the U.S. Trade

Representative, the U.S. International Trade Commission, the U.S. Trade

and Development Agency, the Foreign Agricultural Service of the

Department of Agriculture, and the International Trade Administration in

the Department of Commerce.

The principal issues in the international trade, finance, and

competitiveness area are

• assuring that U.S. economic interests are well-served through international

accords and organizations;

• promoting the economy, efficiency, and effectiveness of government

organizations and programs related to international trade and finance;

• evaluating whether and how government programs and policies affect

business productivity and the standard of living for Americans.

In the pages that follow, we describe our key planned work on these

critical issues.

In recognition that events may significantly affect our plan, our planning

process allows for updating the plan and responding quickly to emerging

Page 1 GAO/IAP-95-13
Foreword

issues. If you have any questions or suggestions about this plan, please call

me at (202) 512-4812.

Allan Mendelowitz

Managing Director

International Trade, Finance, and Competitiveness

 Issues

Page 2 GAO/IAP-95-13
Contents

Foreword 1

Table I: Key Issues 4

Table II: Planned

Major Work

6

Table III: GAO

Contacts

7

Page 3 GAO/IAP-95-13
Table I: Key Issues

Issue Significance

International accords: How can U.S.

interests be enhanced through participation

in bilateral and multilateral trade agreements

and other economic institutions?

Congress has recently passed two controversial multilateral trade agreements, NAFTA

and GATT, which involved vigorous congressional debate over potential trade,

economic, and employment effects as well as concern about U.S. sovereignty.

Experience has shown that monitoring trade agreements is essential if the United States

is to realize the benefits it attempted to achieve. Furthermore, these trade agreements

are expected to be expanded over the next few years, leading to extensive

congressional debate about renewing fast-track negotiating authority for the President.

In addition, the administration will continue to conduct bilateral negotiations to enhance

U.S. economic interests with such countries as Japan and Russia.

Government organizations and programs:

Are U.S. government international trade and

finance organizations and programs

efficiently managed and effective in

promoting U.S. economic interests?

Thirteen U.S. government agencies collectively spend about $3.5 billion annually on

export promotion programs. Numerous budget, operational, organizational, and

coordination issues need to be addressed to ensure that federal expenditures are

efficient and effective.

Competitiveness: How do government

programs and policies affect U.S.

competitiveness?

Fundamental obstacles remain to improving U.S. competitiveness in the global

economy. Recent productivity increases have not been translated into higher real

wages and an overall improvement in the standard of living. Many fear that, as a nation,

the United States still provides inadequate training and education for the U.S.

workforce, insufficient investment in infrastructure and inadequate long-term investment

in research and development and capital assets.

Page 4 GAO/IAP-95-13
Table I: Key Issues

Objectives Focus of work

•Evaluate whether U.S. negotiations achieve the stated objectives in

international agreements.

•Monitor implementation of agreements to ensure they are promoting U.S.

interests.

•Evaluate efforts to establish new agreements and proposals to

strengthen existing agreements and institutions.

•Implementation of NAFTA and Uruguay Round

agreements and their effects on U.S. interests.

•U.S. and foreign participation in regional trade

agreements.

•Bilateral trade agreements.

•Efforts to address nontariff trade barriers.

•Identify management improvements, legislative changes, and regulatory

reforms that would improve market development, improve export

promotion and financing programs, and produce budgetary savings.

•Identify ways to improve governmentwide strategic planning, budgeting,

and program coordination.

•Promote the design of trade programs that respond to other nations’

trade and investment practices.

•Identify ways to reduce waste, fraud, or abuse in agency program

management.

•Implementation of the governmentwide strategic plan for

export promotion, including coordination of program goals

and operations through the Trade Promotion Coordinating

Committee.

•Review of Eximbank reinvention efforts that are designed

to improve trade finance programs to better meet customer

financing needs and to improve administrative efficiencies.

•Review of major competitor nations’ export credit

agencies’ export financing systems.

•Given the impending 1995 Farm Bill, monitor and

evaluate Agriculture Export Title programs and issues,

including the revised long-term strategy, structure,

organization, and operation of revisions to agriculture

export programs, in light of changes resulting from GATT

and NAFTA implementation legislation.

•Work across GAO issue areas to provide Congress with information and

analysis for assessing the impact of government activities on

competitiveness issues.

•Identify competitiveness trade-offs and conflicts within/among programs

and policies.

•Assess the availability and quality of data and evaluation methodologies

for determining competitiveness impacts.

•Studies of macro- and microeconomic conditions driving

business activities.

•Promotion of U.S. economic interests through trade,

development, and other international policies.

•Effect of government policies and programs on saving

rate, investment, and productivity growth.

•Efforts to achieve a higher quality workforce.

•Efforts to foster a strong technology base that leads to

productivity growth.

•Contribution of infrastructure investment to economic

development and business productivity.

Page 5 GAO/IAP-95-13
Table II: Planned Major Work

Issue Planned major job starts

International accords —Examine Mexican financial crisis and U.S. response.

—Assess ability of international financial institutions to respond to liquidity crises. 

— Monitor establishment of the World Trade Organization.

— Evaluate operations of NAFTA commissions. 

— Examine NAFTA accession issues.

— Assess impact of environmental rules and standards on trade.

— Review status of U.S. trade initiatives in Asia.

— Monitor progress in negotiating trade agreements to achieve market access for U.S.

service sectors.

Government organizations and

programs

— Evaluate effectiveness of U.S. government project finance programs in transitional and

emerging markets.

— Examine organizational structure, operations, and budgetary implications of the

Department of Commerce’s management of international trade programs and activities.

— Monitor the executive branch’s implementation of import laws, including unfair trade

practice laws, import relief laws, and tariff preference programs.

— Examine alternative agricultural export finance programs and related budgetary

implications.

— Review competitor countries’ agricultural export finance programs.

— Review integration of all agricultural export promotion programs and activities and related

budgetary implications.

Competitiveness — Review competitiveness indicators. 

— Review key employment regulations.

— Examine institutional investor strategies.

— Evaluate infrastructure projects and productivity.

— Evaluate quality workforce efforts.

— Analyze cooperative research arrangements.

Page 6 GAO/IAP-95-13
Table III: GAO Contacts

Managing Director Allan Mendelowitz (202) 512-4812

Director JayEtta Hecker (202) 512-8984

Assistant Directors Patrick Gormley

Kenneth Hoeth

John Hutton

Randy Schultz

Elizabeth Sirois

Phillip Thomas

Curtis Turnbow

Susan Westin

Page 7 GAO/IAP-95-13
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