From today’s Washington Post:
But upon learning that the judges were with the World Trade Organization, and that they had ruled U.S. cotton subsidies to be in violation of international trade rules, [Texas cotton farmer George] Hoelscher began to perceive some dark truths.
“We’re losing our sovereignty in a lot of ways,” said Hoelscher, who farms 1,200 acres of cotton near Corpus Christi and collects up to $15,000 a year in federal subsidies, depending on prices. “This is one more way, having these people dictate to us, along with the United Nations and so forth.”
I predict it’s only a matter of time - and not long at that - before many in Congress get on their high horse about the latest WTO ruling against US cotton subsidies and complaining that world trade is taking our sovereignty away.
Well, international trade agreements do take away sovereignty. That’s the point. When it comes to trade, if every nation were to pursue policies of seeming self-interest, all would be worse off. US consumers should be thanking any attempt to curb the political juggernaut valuing agricultrual interests over lower prices for cotton buyers, not to mention the economic development of the third world. (Is there any prominent free-trade political voice you can find on this issue? Certainly not from the Bush administration.)
But even more than the larger free-trade principle, the sheer hypocrisy is galling. As the Guardian’s Kick Agricultural Subsidies blog puts it,
But hang on — isn’t this the same US administration which, according to an exclusive story in the Guardian today is claiming $1.8 billion through the WTO in compensation for the loss of exports to the European Union because of the latter’s ban on genetically modified crops? What was that about having your (subsidized) cake and eating it?
Which goes to the point that not only trade but multilateral treaties work both ways. They’re not just a curb on your sovereignty but a means to curb other’s sovereignty when it cuts against mutual desirable longer-term goals.
Of course, it’s the longer term picture which seems to have fallen by the wayside in the last few years.
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