The Visible Hand

Or maybe that should be visible teeth, of the WTO, biting U.S. protectionism in the ass again.

This time, "Brazil won a preliminary ruling Monday night at the World Trade Organization that could force the United States to lower the subsidies it pays farmers to grow cotton and, eventually, most subsidized crops."

Last year, we'll recall, the WTO ruling that U.S. steel tariffs were a violation of free trade was initially condemned as "an unalloyed assault on United States sovereignty." This, of course, was precisely the argument advanced by those opposed to NAFTA and the WTO in the first place -- that the agreements would be an assault on national sovereignty.

U.S. mucky-mucks didn't, apparently, expect the "free trade" agreements to be binding upon the Empire. But, realising that its failure to adhere to the WTO's steel tariffs ruling would spark a trade war with the EU, the Bush Administration relented -- and will presumably do so in this newest case as well.

Ominously, "Brazil was joined in the WTO case as third parties by Argentina, Australia, Benin, Canada, Chad, China, the European Union, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, Paraguay, Taiwan and Venezuela."

Mess with the bull, you might get the horns (as the saying goes).

Update, 5/1/04: The hits just keep on coming. This time, the blow was administered by NAFTA, which has ruled that there is no basis for the duties (averaging 27% since 2001) imposed upon Canadian lumber imports.

The Bush Administration's reaction: "disappointed". One would think that the Administration would be ecstatic. After all, this ruling brings us one step closer to Free Trade Utopia. The ruling allows us to remove a gross market distortion -- mistakenly undertaken, in good faith, as it happens.

What's to be disappointed about?

Posted by Eddie Tews at April 28, 2004 09:56 AM