Crabby in Seattle? Leading Trade Expert Speaks About Impending Food Fight.

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 2, 1999--

President Clinton needs to spend less time sympathizing with WTO demonstrators and more time educating them on the economic benefits of free trade, a leading trade expert and journalist told a Seattle audience yesterday.

Speaking at the Rotary Club of Seattle, the largest and fourth oldest Rotary club in the world, Greg Rushford, editor and publisher of The Rushford Report, said the demonstrators on the streets of Seattle were woefully lacking in education about the benefits of international trade.

While he chastised both Republicans and Democrats for their inability to communicate the benefits of free trade to the public, Rushford acknowledged the work of the several organizations and individuals in working to protect consumer interests by promoting free trade. These include the International Association of Automobile Dealers, Caterpillar Inc.; Hogan & Hartson, a Washington, D.C.-based law firm that handles international trade issues; and Phillips Foods, Inc., a Baltimore-based company that operates 10 high-volume seafood restaurants a food manufacturing facility in the inner city of Baltimore.

Rushford, a respected trade expert and journalist -- who contributes regular columns to the Wall Street Journal and the Asian Wall Street Journal -- said that Phillips should be considered a "poster child" for international trade. Through its international seafood operations, Phillips has created jobs, both domestically and overseas, Rushford said.

Phillips began importing crab from Asia in the 1980s when the company ran into difficulties supplying its restaurants with a quality domestic product. Today, the family-run company has operations in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand, creating jobs for some 12,000 workers in these countries. It also employs over 300 inner-city workers in the economically depressed West Baltimore. Because of its operations overseas, Phillips has been able to expand its restaurant and food business to employ over 3,000 people in Maryland, Illinois, New York, Florida, Texas, and California.

The Phillips story, Rushford pointed out, is not over. A group of domestic crab processors want the International Trade Commission and President Clinton to impose quotas on imported blue swimming crab under the Section 201 of the WTO Agreement on Safeguards. If successful, consumers will be faced with higher prices for one of America's fastest-growing seafood products and restaurant operators may be forced to take crab off the menu.