By Peter A. Buxbaum, AJOTThe idea of creating an Asia-Pacific free trade area received a boost at the recently concluded Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Hanoi. President George W. Bush put his stamp of approval on the idea, and other APEC members have expressed even stronger interest. An Asia-Pacific free trade area would also benefit from trends emphasizing regional, as opposed to global, trade approaches. But will the US get behind the program? Democratic majorities take control of the House of Representatives and Senate come January, and some in the Democratic leadership have expressed exceptions to the freewheeling free-trade style the US has pursued in recent years. President Bush, speaking in Singapore before his arrival in Vietnam for the summit, noted that the move towards liberalization of Asia-Pacific trade has been ongoing for some years. “In 1994, in Bogor, Indonesia, APEC reached an historic agreement to liberalize trade and investment throughout the region by 2020, and the United States strongly supports this goal,” he stated. “Recently, some APEC members have advanced the idea of a free trade agreement for the entire APEC region. I believe this idea deserves serious consideration.” The Hanoi Declaration, which was issued jointly by the twenty-one APEC participants at the end of the conference echoed Bush’s sentiments. ‘There are practical difficulties in negotiating a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific at this time,” the declaration noted. “It would nonetheless be timely for APEC to seriously consider more effective avenues towards trade and investment liberalization in the Asia-Pacific region.” Among the measures endorsed: a five-percent reduction in trade transaction costs by 2010. Several key APEC members are already on record supporting the initiative. The Taiwan delegation to APEC, for example, issued a statement that flatly declared, “We support the concept of a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific. “We believe that the formation of an Asia-Pacific free trade area will improve our trade and investment relations with other members and complement our other long-term objectives for participation in APEC,” the Taiwanese statement continued. “For these reasons, we support such an initiative.” New Zealand, for its part, is embarking on a trade strategy which emphasizes its relationships with Asia. In a speech delivered November 20, New Zealand’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters noted that the value of New Zealand’s exports to Asia now outstrips its trade with the more traditional markets of Australia, Europe and the United States. “Half of our top twenty export markets are in Asia, with the major economies of Japan, China and Korea in the top six,” he said. New Zealand has negotiated formal economic cooperation relationships with Australia, Thailand, Singapore, and Brunei, Peters added. It is also in the process of negotiating free trade agreements with China, Malaysia and with ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Countries. Meanwhile, the New Zealand Institute, a think tank, recently released a report which advocated taking a more regionalized approach to international trade relations. “New Zealand’s current approach relies heavily on multilateral trade liberalization through the World Trade Organization, supplemented by a secondary focus on bilateral and regional free trade agreements and export promotion activities,” the report commented. “Serious questions need to be asked in terms of whether this approach remains fully appropriate.” The suspension of the Doha Round of world trade talks means. “the multilateral approach is at risk,” according to the report, while “regional economic activity and regional trade agreements are becoming significantly more prominent.” Among the strategic elements advocated by the report is “a more deliberate regional focus - with substantial investments in Australia, the US, and China. Strategic focus is important for a small country like New Zealand in order to achieve real impact.” The