WTO & Byrd Amendment: Do Two Wrongs Make A Right?
---
A free-trade kerfuffle that we can't possibly win:
Now, in my opinion the Byrd Amendment is a second-order-of-magnitude travesty, not only because it interferes with international trade per se, but also because it selectively subsidizes favored businesses and industries (and we all know how they become "favored" to begin with).
But now, by enacting a tariff scheme that just about everyone knew that the WTO would declare "illegal," the U.S. is caught in the most pernicious of Catch-22 situations: either obey the WTO and "clean up our room" like a good little schoolboy, or ignore it -- thereby giving the one-world wingnuts yet another reason to crow and strut about how "arrogant" the U.S. is (and causing a rift between the President and Congress in the process). All this, plus the actual direct impact on U.S. exporters when the retaliatory measures of our trading partners take effect.
Yuk.
While this President has been an unmitigated disaster on free trade issues (think "steel" and "shrimp"), the Byrd Amendment is in all fairness not his fault -- an excellent primer on its uninspiring history here.
And there's little he can do except what he's doing now, namely jawboning Congress to repeal it (yet another example of a Republican President having to negotiate with a Republican Congress -- so much for the "Kerry for Gridlock" imbeciles).
Let's get the repeal of this pork-barrel monstrosity behind us, hopefully with as little global embarrassment as possible.
The Bush administration said it would work with Congress to avoid U.S. exports being hit with potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in new sanctions approved on Tuesday by the World Trade Organization.
...
The WTO approved a retaliation request by the European Union, Japan, Canada, Brazil, India, Mexico, Chile and South Korea after the United States failed to meet a deadline last year for repealing the so-called "Byrd amendment," which has been declared illegal under international trade rules.
The program distributes funds raised by U.S. anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties on imported goods to companies that asked for the protection. Previously, the funds went into the general treasury. About $710 million has been paid to companies over the past three years.
Now, in my opinion the Byrd Amendment is a second-order-of-magnitude travesty, not only because it interferes with international trade per se, but also because it selectively subsidizes favored businesses and industries (and we all know how they become "favored" to begin with).
But now, by enacting a tariff scheme that just about everyone knew that the WTO would declare "illegal," the U.S. is caught in the most pernicious of Catch-22 situations: either obey the WTO and "clean up our room" like a good little schoolboy, or ignore it -- thereby giving the one-world wingnuts yet another reason to crow and strut about how "arrogant" the U.S. is (and causing a rift between the President and Congress in the process). All this, plus the actual direct impact on U.S. exporters when the retaliatory measures of our trading partners take effect.
Yuk.
While this President has been an unmitigated disaster on free trade issues (think "steel" and "shrimp"), the Byrd Amendment is in all fairness not his fault -- an excellent primer on its uninspiring history here.
And there's little he can do except what he's doing now, namely jawboning Congress to repeal it (yet another example of a Republican President having to negotiate with a Republican Congress -- so much for the "Kerry for Gridlock" imbeciles).
Let's get the repeal of this pork-barrel monstrosity behind us, hopefully with as little global embarrassment as possible.
Related Posts (on one page):
- House Votes to Kill Byrd Amendment
- Byrd Amendment Only Benefitting a Handful of Companies
- WTO & Byrd Amendment: Do Two Wrongs Make A Right?
Posted by KipEsquire on
31 August 2004
To comment on this post, please visit the new blogsite.
