Ron Kirk: “I do believe the most responsible action we can take now with Russia's certainty of becoming a WTO Member is to move…”

The credibility we gained by the strong vote in this Congress on the three FTAs sort of answered the questions from some of our negotiating partners.

They have made some great strides in the last several years, and they acknowledge that it is because of U.S. support and investment and cooperation that they've been able to make some tremendous progress there.

The issue of assassination of individuals simply because they happen to be trade unionists or the issue of the suppression of the ability of workers to try to collectively bargain are still there.

We are going to try to get the strongest provisions that we can, and understand, this is one where we have some of the strongest headwind because of some of the other countries that frankly have a very different approach to this.