Brussels, 18/03/2009 (Agence Europe) - Visiting Washington to make contact with the new US administration and meet Trade Representative Ron Kirk, EU Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton called on Wednesday 18 March, for a “new era” of cooperation between the EU and the US that has become tangled up in old bilateral trade disputes. “It makes sense to work towards further converging our market rules and removing existing barriers. On the flipside, our credibility will be undermined and our energy sapped if we persist in pursuing bilateral trade disputes through the WTO. I'm determined to clear the way for a new era of cooperation that is based on mutual goals rather than mutual suspicion and where disputes are replaced by deals,” she said in a speech at the Carnegie Endowment. In the run up to the G20 summit, Ashton also argued for free trade in the face of the crisis, highlighting the risk of a spiral into protectionism with measures such as tariff and non-tariff barriers, unfair export subsidies and local preference clauses in recovery packages. “It is right and proper that governments invest in their economies, in their industries and workers, to protect people in the broadest sense of the word. But that is entirely different from protectionism. Protecting people means equipping them to compete in the world,” she argued, calling on the G20 countries to keep their markets open and to conclude the Doha Round. (E.H./transl.rt)