The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2004

L E T T E R S diplomacy. While we sipped our lattes and watched our stocks, the international jihadist movement grew stronger and stronger within the Islamic world, defined us as an exis- tential enemy, and began a series of attacks culminating with 9/11. Surely what we need is an integrated foreign policy that brings together political, military, intelligence and public diplomacy objectives — not an exclu- sive focus on our balance of trade. Janowski has not grounded his arguments in the facts and has decid- ed to insult those who do not share his views. This is unfortunate. Kerem Bilgé FSO heading to Baku Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics I spent a large part of my Foreign Service career working on trade poli- cy issues, and support initiatives such as the African Growth and Oppor- tunity Act that promote the integra- tion of developing countries into the world trading system. Anthony Carroll, in his article “AGOA: Open- ing Doors” ( FSJ , May), touts the suc- cess of AGOA and notes that U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoel- lick has called AGOA an unqualified success. A closer examination of trade data, however, reveals a decid- edly less rosy picture. The 2001 to 2003 trade data included in the article reveal a mixed trade performance at best. While imports increased by $4.4 billion, or 20 percent, fully $3.5 billion of this growth represents higher imports of petroleum and petroleum products from Nigeria, Angola, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. These products were duty-free prior to AGOA, and their value largely fluctuates with world prices rather than in response to trade policy. Furthermore, while several coun- tries, such as Kenya, Swaziland and 8 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 4