Karen,
Of course we should forget NAFTA and
these other acronyms and simply become a free trade nation. Drop all our import
restrictions except health and safety stuff.
Conservatives have traditionally been
against free trade and liberals have been for it. However, a politician doesn’t
get large amounts of money by advocating a better economic deal for Americans,
but by ensuring a special privilege to an already well-heeled company.
So, both Democrats and Republicans will
continue to claim they are sensibly for free trade even as trade restrictions continue
to increase.
Harry
********************************
Henry George School of Social Science
of Los Angeles
Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042
818 352-4141
********************************
From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Karen Watters Cole
Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2005
7:45 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Futurework] Bad Neighbor
Policy
I’m in a sharing mood. -
kwc
How
Bush muddied relations with Canada
OpEd by Thomas Oliphant, Boston Globe, October 20, 2005
WASHINGTON – In his occasional internationalist
moments, President Bush likes to tell the story of how on his first
image-repairing journey to the scarred Gulf Coast
last month the first people he encountered were Canadians on the scene to
help. It is a disingenuous tale
from a president who talks open markets and cordial hemispheric relations but
practices consumer-unfriendly protectionism with interest group-dictated
regularity.
Take
lumber. On top of a still-prosperous new housing market, the hurricane season
has triggered a gigantic surge in demand. In addition to aid workers, Bush
might also have seen tons of Canadian softwood piled up and ready to help
shelter hundreds of thousands of people who have lost everything.
The
reason he didn't see much is that for the better part of four years the United States
has been slapping tariffs averaging nearly 30 percent on Canadian softwood
lumber. One result is that prices for consumers are unnaturally higher, in this
case the prices of homes.
Another
result is that international trading relationships are disrupted, often in ways
that affect broader relationships as well. People in this country don't pay
enough attention, but there is no relationship in the world more important than
the one with Canada.
Right now it is a needless mess.
On
numerous occasions, the United
States has failed to make a definitive case
before international bodies that its protectionist lumber policies conform to
the complex array of treaties that bind countries together. Most important, it
has consistently failed to make a case to the dispute resolution mechanisms
created under the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Under
the latest rejection of the US
position by a NAFTA panel -- one that included a majority of American members
-- the Bush administration was given a deadline of next week to begin
complying. However, Bush may seek the delay and appeal routes.
This
dispute is a huge deal in Canada.
To understand why, consider a trade mission that Canada's
natural resources minister, John McCallum, undertook to China this
week. According to
reports from Beijing, his enthusiasm for
pitching the country's oil and gas resources to China
has increased in direct proportion to the seriousness of the lumber dispute
with the United States.
McCallum's
comments suggest that Canada, thinking big and long-term, is less interested in
tit-for-tat retaliation games with this country and more interested in thinking
anew about its larger interests. They could and no doubt should include NAFTA,
but if silly American unilateralism is going to undermine it, then Canada has
other options in the world.
Bush
and Canada's
Prime Minister Paul Martin are supposed to get on well personally, but the two
apparently had a testy telephone call last Friday, during which Martin rejected
Bush's entreaty to negotiate on an issue the American side has already lost.
Instead, Canada
is very likely to end up in US courts seeking to get the Bush administration to
follow the law it is sworn to uphold.
It
would be one thing if Canada
were found to be flagrantly dumping cheap products on the US market. The
key element in the dispute, however, focuses on a claim by domestic lumber
interests that Canadian provinces do not charge a high enough fee for
tree-cutting (called stumpage) and that the result is a government subsidy.
This isn't a genuine grievance, especially given the fact that that the Bush
administration has looked the other way in the face of much larger challenges,
like Chinese intellectual piracy, textile products dumping, and currency value
manipulation.
The
situation is made even more absurd by another flagrant abuse of international
norms called the Byrd Amendment -- after Robert Byrd of West Virginia. This enables the very
industries that go whining to Washington
to get the extra tariff money that is collected. We're talking about billions
of dollars here.
One
reason Bush's trade policy record is so spotty (I'm being charitable) is that
his actions so often contradict his words. Running for election in 2000, one of
the ways he carried West Virginia was to
promise protection for the fragile steel industry, a pledge that didn't
accomplish much beyond higher US
prices before the protection was ended.
Bush
was wrong then, and he's wrong on lumber now. At a minimum, citizens should
expect their government to fight for their best interests when they are
threatened from abroad. In this case, there is no threat, and corporations are
benefiting at the expense of consumers.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/10/20/how_bush_muddied_relations_with_canada/
