Bernie Sanders, introduced HF res 27 which withdraws the US from the WTO.
This is great, while no doubt it will never pass this is the time to write your house rep to say vote yes.
It’s pretty obvious current trade agreements are not working too well and hats off to Sanders and his co-sponsors on coming out with such a blatant “let’s get out of this” bill.
While I would expect a Republican to engage in this craven jingoism, I am surprised to see this proposal coming from a Democrat, much less see it praised on what I hope is progressive site.
The USA has cynically used the WTO rule to promote a limited number of US owned international companies at the expense of developing countries. The classic case was the banana dispute where the EU was forced to abandon policies that favored small farmers in ex colonies to benefit large producers like Dole. Now the EU is far from innocent in these matters but at least the question of fair trade is on the agenda.
US trade and subsidy policies are profoundly protectionist and immoral. Some are killing people in the poorest areas on Earth. One such example is the case of the cotton subsidies given to US farmers. This has been at a level of about $4 subsidy for every $3 worth of cotton grown. The effect has been to devastate the cotton growing industry in other parts of the world, particularly Africa. The WTO has ruled against these subsidies twice and the US has exhauseted the appeals process. Still no action has been taken and in the last couple of days African cotton producers meeting in Cairo has given the US to the end of the year to do something about it. Bush makes much of how much he has increased aid to Africa. What is not needed long term is hand outs of excess US production, again caused by farming subsidies, but conditions in which they can trade fairly.
It ie very easy for US politicians to bleat about having to comply with trading rules when the faults lie with their own industries. Take steel where again the US has lost at the WTO. US bulk steel makers had done nothing to modernise amd rationalise their industry but instead relied on protectionist measures. When these had to be removed, it was the WTO not the companies that had relied on paying off congressmen to put the protectionist measures in place. Boeing is trying to cover up its reliance on military buying and subsidies on research it receives by getting military and NASA contracts and is going after Airbus Industries for the open government loans it gets within the EU.
It’s time for Americans to wake up and smell the coffee that is so cheap and the trading structure so unfair that the growers cannot make a decent living. If GM can only be bailed out by the Japanese makers hiking their prices, there is something profoundly wrong with the business and social culture in the USA.
You should examine Bernie Sanders website. He is a
socialist and shows how US trade agreements do not
help raise up the 3rd world at all, in fact the opposite.
There are many democrats against the WTO, NAFTA, China PNTR and for good reason. Some of the most progressive
democrats voted for this bill.
I think you are askew in the facts and results of
these trade agreements to think that a corporate
sponsored representative would vote to pull out
of the WTO, for it is the opposite.