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On most issues that come before the US Congress, our views could not be more different. But not when it comes to trade. Though we differed on recent trade promotion authority legislation, we have collaborated to expand trade with China, Africa, Caribbean and Andean nations and others. For us, trade is a matter of enhancing the competitiveness of US industries and ensuring that they have fair access to overseas markets. Creating good jobs in the US has always been the overriding objective.
The recent World Trade Organisation ruling against the US requires a renewal of our prior bipartisan efforts.
The WTO has ruled that a portion of US international tax law - the so-called Foreign Sales Corporation (FSC) and the extraterritorial income (ETI) exclusion - gives the US an unfair trade advantage. As a result, the WTO last month ruled that the European Union could impose sanctions of up to $4bn a year on imports from the US. In response, the EU has already released its draft list of US products that may be targeted.
The draft list covers not just $4bn worth of authorised sanctions, but up to $12bn worth. It includes steel, beef, sugar, wood and paper products, cotton, apparel, cosmetics and electrical machinery.
If even a fraction of these announced sanctions were put in place, it would devastate not only US businesses and consumers but EU businesses and consumers as well. For the sake of the global economy, the EU and the US must work together - just as the political parties within the US must work together.
Fortunately, there are bipartisan efforts under way to respond to the WTO ruling and avoid trade disruptions. Members of the US Congress are looking for a solution that might include changes to US law and changes to international trading rules - negotiated within the new Doha round - to ensure that US-based exporters are not disadvantaged in relation to European or other foreign competitors. Max Baucus, the Democrat senator from Montana, and Charles Grassley, the Republican senator from Iowa, have called for a bi-partisan, bicameral working group with the US administration.
We support such efforts. Additionally, we must ensure that our response creates incentives for domestic job creation by US companies and foreign subsidiaries operating in US territory. We propose five principles as the basis for a successful response to the WTO ruling.
First, every response to prior challenges to our FSC-ETI provisions was bipartisan and involved both the executive and legislative branches of government. We recognise there is an imperative to act but, given the complexity of the matter and the vast number of affected constituencies, we must have a bipartisan solution.
Second, our nation must comply with the WTO rules. This goal can be accomplished through changes in our tax law and/or changes to trade rules negotiated within the new round of negotiations that was launched in Doha, Qatar. We are willing to explore both alternatives.
Third, if changes to our tax laws are determined to be necessary, the revenue from repeal of the FSC-ETI should be devoted to enhancing the competitiveness of companies operating within the US. Punishing US manufacturers is not the answer to the WTO ruling. Therefore, manufacturers should be the focus of any replacement tax provisions.
Fourth, we should resist the temptation of responding to the WTO ruling by enacting tax penalties on the US operations of foreign companies. Any such tax penalties could adversely affect millions of jobs in the US and could invite similar retaliation against the foreign operations of our companies.
Last, we should understand that enacting trade promotion authority - which gives the president authority to negotiate trade agreements that he can present to Congress for a yes or no vote - was a relatively easy preliminary step. Congressional approval of the product of the new round of negotiations could be far more difficult. Linking the repeal of provisions for our job- producing exporters with tax liberalisations for companies operating overseas would make implementing a new round much harder. The argument that Congress will have provided tax and trade incentives to companies moving their operations overseas - and the jobs that go with them - could be fatal to any attempt to enact new trade legislation. This is a result neither of us can accept and is not in the US's best interests.
We understand that there is a fair amount of sabre- rattling going on, perhaps on both sides of the Atlantic. We feel a solution based on the above principles is the only viable approach not only to the current threatened sanctions but also to continuing to expand trade worldwide.
Philip Crane, is Republican chairman of the House Ways and Means Sub-Committee on Trade. Charles Rangel is Democrat ranking member of the US House Committee on Ways and Means. | 
