Archives for the 'Trade' Category
Job-Killing Sugar Quotas Continue, Milking Consumers
Welcome to OpenMarket.org! Please consider Subscribing to our RSS feed, so you don’t miss any of the news and analysis brought to you by CEI’s policy experts.
Say bye bye to more American manufacturing jobs. The Washington Post editorialized today about sugar import quotas and price supports contained in the bloated federal farm bill, which have ”driven some U.S. candy producers either out of business or overseas” by increasing U.S. sugar prices. It costs consumers a bundle in higher prices to benefit a handful of subsidized American sugar producers, while antagonizing and impoverishing poor countries in the Caribbean and Latin America. The President has criticized the bloated farm bill, but may not do anything to block it, given his weak political position and other priorities. In Reason, Ronald Bailey describes the many ways that the current farm bill wastes taxpayer money and takes from the poor to give to the rich. In the National Review, Fran Smith earlier wrote about “the outrageous U.S. sugar regime,” which has cost taxpayers billions to benefit “a small number of large sugar-cane and sugar-beet producers.”
Reality causing anti-biotech hegemony to waver
As reports of food prices going through the ceiling are trickling in, some of the countries that traditionally reject plants bred with molecular plant breeding methods (PMBs) are reconsidering.
Japan’s largest corn processor have started buying PMB corn for human consumption, although Japan have permitted PMBs for animal feed.
63,000 tons of PMB corn arrived in Seoul, South Korea on Thursday last week and officials said that they couldn’t get hold of enough non-PMB corn because the European’s are sweeping the small supply that exists off the market.
The trouble with getting hold of non-PMB crops has hurt inside Europe too, a corner stone factory that processed food oils in my hometown in Norway shut down in 2005, and EU official’s thinks that the rice in food prices might sway the European political opposition against PMBs, we can only hope and see…
How many EU bureacrats does it take to lift an import ban?
How long should it take to lift an import ban, when all the parties agree that there are no health safety or science issues involved? In the EU, it has taken 11 years and it is still working on the issue.
My buddy Richard North, author and former food safety inspector blogged about the EU ban on US poultry imports recently, when EU promised to deliver a “progress report” on their efforts to lift the import ban.
According to North, the EU banned US poultry imports because US poultry farmers wash the poultry in a disinfectant to eliminate pathogens such as e. coli and such. This is not allowed in the EU, so they stopped importing poultry from the US. EU’s version of the FDA has said this practice is not only safe, but desirable. EU bureaucrats however, know how angry EU poultry farmers will be if the ban is lifted, so they are dragging their feet, just like they do in every other case of import bans on agricultural products.
North says if it comes down to the safety of EU consumers and the coddling of EU food producers, EU will choose coddling any day. Gods forbid that the benevolent government should protect the consumers they repeatedly claim they protect!
-And the answer to the question in the headline? I don’t know, cause the EU has yet to lift an import ban of importance…
EU not likely to settle PMB haggling in May either…
EU was supposed to have an authoritative discussion on plants bred with molecular plant breeding techniques (PMB’s) in May. The organization has been fined by the WTO for using PMB bans as a trade barrier but stubborn politicians are blackmailing each other with approvals and denials of various organisms, costing consumers and companies billions of Euros. According the story from Reuters, it does not seem that the May discussion will resolve any issues either…
Wealth is created one person at a time
Many people I know are passionate about eradicating poverty. Out of all the ailments that humans suffer from, poverty is one of the cruelest and dehumanizing situations that one can find one self in. Poverty is not defined by how many dollars you have to live on every day, it is not defined by what percentage of income you are below. Poverty is lack of options; it is that simple.
The problem with our political class today is that they build these amazing projects to help poor people, organizations like the UN, the Worldbank, and countless NGO’s create these projects that supposedly will help the people with the fewest options in the world. They are spending millions and millions of dollars and failing miserably.
The Grameen Foundation, with their micro loans and micro utility systems has understood that wealth is created at the individual level. If you help people get credit, so they can do the investments needed to expand their livelihood, their lives will change. Grameen got the Nobel Prize in 2007 for this insight.
Someone else who has understood this is a guy named Paul Polak. After years of being a psychologist, he found that alleviating financial troubles had a profound effect on alleviating their mental illnesses. A trip to Bangladesh inspired him to start up International Development Enterprises, a non-profit that helps adapt modern farming technologies to small rural farms and helps build micro economies and local markets.
In the last 25 years, Paul Polak has helped individuals in the poorest rural communities around the world increase their income by $200 million. No government-to-government program can claim such a success. Polak wrote about his work and his method in a book called Out of Poverty, that was published recently, and you can also learn more about his work by listening to the NPR interview with him.
Colombia “tariff ticker” debuts
The U.S. Department of Agriculture features a Colombia “tariff ticker” on its website to illustrate in money terms how the pending U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement will benefit U.S. exports. Currently, under preferential agreements, virtually all Colombian goods enter the U.S. duty-free, while U.S. exports face tariffs averaging 14 percent — and up to 80 percent for certain agricultural products, according to the U.S. Trade Representative.
The Colombia FTA will change that. Tariffs on most U.S. products exported to Colombia would be duty-free immediately, with others phased out over ten years.
The Tariff Ticker shows that for the 524 days since the FTA was signed but not voted on by Congress, duties on U.S. exports to Colombia totaled over $988,000,000. Those tariffs are ticking up in real time.
A graphic way to show how Congress’ deliberate delay in considering the trade pact is harming U.S. producers and businesses where it hurts. See this and other previous posts on the FTA.
Kristof: Stop Antagonizing the World
Nicholas Kristof has a column today in the New York Times, “Better Roses Than Cocaine,” in favor of the proposed free-trade agreement with Colombia, and debunking common claims made against it. We earlier described how House leaders pushed through special tax breaks for an oil company controlled by Venezuela’s anti-American dictator, even as they seek to undermine Colombia’s pro-American government and block a deal that would spur even more economic growth here than in Colombia. The Washington Post, in an editorial, also questioned why they’re helping Venezuela’s “repressive government” while attacking Colombia’s “democratic government.”
Free trade vs. “regulated” trade
Well worth reading in today’s Wall Street Journal – former Secretary of State James A. Baker, III’s cogent analysis of why it is critical for Congress to go beyond partisan politics and approve the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.
Baker says:
The White House and Congress have reached an impasse. As a result, an economically and geopolitically important agreement is hanging in the balance. If our leaders in Congress don’t change their approach, a critical building block for stability in an important region of South America may fall victim to domestic partisan squabbling.
Contrast Baker’s well-reasoned and factual arguments with Sen. Sherrod Brown’s (D-OH) piece in the same issue, titled “Don’t call me a protectionist.”
Well, you could have fooled me. In his attack on trade in general and the Colombia FTA in particular, Brown dredges out the same old “race to the bottom” arguments that have been the slogan of anti-trade activists – led by trade unions – over the past 10 or more years:
Trade agreements with no rules to protect our health, the environment and labor rights inevitably create a race to the bottom and weaken health and safety rules for our trading partners and for our own communities.
Sen. Brown seems to forget that Democratic policymakers last summer forced a “deal” – misguided that it was – to include extensive and enforceable environmental and labor standards in trade agreements that had already been negotiated and signed, including the Colombia FTA. He also conveniently doesn’t mention that most Colombian goods come into the U.S. duty-free already, and the pending FTA would have Colombia reduce or eliminate most of its high tariffs.
As Brown bewails “unregulated trade,” he shows little understanding of what trade is – an exchange of goods and services by buyers and sellers that benefits both parties.
Food Crisis Round Up
As food prices soars to new heights, researchers at Texas A&M makes a potentially revolutionary discovery. They discover a plant gene for saline tolerance in Arabidopsis. Arabidopsis is the trusty old model organism for plant scientists, and this discovery will help us produce new plants using molecular plant breeding methods (PMB’s), if the environmentalists will let us.
Although some of our current ailments are based on ill conceived ethanol mandates, subsidies that skew the food markets, and increased consumption in India and China, a recent op ed in the Telegraph joins a more and more unified Brittish demand for adopting PMB’s. The op ed also points the finger in the direction of OPEC, and the hypocrisy of leaders like Hugo Chavez. Chavez is supposedly a champion of the poor, but the high oil prices caused by the cartel’s price fixing are part of the problem with the rise in the cost of food.
Parts of the Arab world are harvesting the riches from the price fixing, it is important to remember that not all countries in the Arab world have oil. The region is balancing on a precarious edge between civil unrest and political chaos by choosing either of the options available to alleviate the situation.
Zimbabwe is again looking at starvation, not only due to the food prices, but also due to new bouts of drought. Last time they faced this situation, about 6 years ago, the government in Zimbabwe refused to accept aid shipments of maize because the grains came from PMB’s. This is the same corn that Americans eat every day. Luckily the starving population would not stand for this decision, spurred on by jet-setting environmental activists from Europe and USA. They raided the food containers, so the grain eventually got the people it was intended for, but what will the misguided leaders in Zimbabwe do this time around?
On the good news side, Ethopia opened up its first commodity exchange last week, which will lower the transaction cost for several major commodities in the country. Hopefully that will help Ethiopian farmers and consumers with lower cost for important foodstuffs.
Is Sweden Really Green or Just Rich?
Brian Williams and his team at NBC announced Sweden to be the greenest country on the planet, and I sure hope their correspondent enjoyed her Sweden junket. However, according to the environmental performance index, Switzerland is the greenest country in the world. But that probably doesn’t work for people who want to portray overly regulated and taxed countries like Scandinavia as the best places in the world to live.
Ok, so granted, Sweden has done a great job at meeting their Kyoto goals, because they do not have oil and have relied on nuclear power for so many years. Sweden is also a rich country, and this is where NBC’s reporting fall way short. If you look at the environmental performance index, it is easy to see that the countries that are ranked high on environmental performance with few exceptions are countries with a high GDP per capita.
The conclusion is the one that you will hear the amazing policy fellows at CEI repeat over and over again, wealthier is healthier and richer is cleaner. The greenest thing you could have done to celebrate Lenin’s birthday today, eh…, I mean to celebrate earth day today is to help increase free trade, help do something to get another poor farmer or factory worker in a developing country get out of poverty. If they get rich, they can afford to clean up their environment, just like the countries on top of the environmental performance index have been able to do.
Korea will allow U.S. beef imports after 4-year hiatus
At a press briefing with South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak at Camp David on April 19, President Bush announced that Korea will reopen its market for U.S. beef imports, which has been a major sticking point in moving the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement forward.
At the Saturday briefing featuring a range of critical issues discussed by the presidents of the two countries, President Bush gave prominent mention of Korea’s resumption of U.S. beef imports after the country had banned U.S. beef after detection of a case of BSE in Washington State in December 2003:
As a former CEO, President Lee understands the importance of trade. First of all, I want to thank you, Mr. President, and I appreciate your decision to reopen the Korean market to American beef — consistent with international standards. This is good news for Korean consumers and it’s good news for American beef producers.
The U.S. Trade Representative’s website posted a fact sheet giving background information on the beef issue and noted that before the closing of the Korean market, it was the “third largest — and growing — export market for U.S. beef and beef products with annual sales of $815 million in 2003.” Under the agreement, Korea will judge its beef imports according to international standards based on science.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture also lauded the beef agreement:
Today’s announcement that South Korea has fully complied with international trade standards regarding beef and beef products is great news for America’s ranchers and beef industry. By allowing complete market access for U.S. beef and beef products from cattle of all ages, South Korea has made a decision that is based on science and in line with international guidelines. As a result of a constructive and steady dialogue, Korean consumers will again have access to safe, affordable, high-quality beef at a time when global commodity prices are tightening.
The beef controversy has been a major impediment holding up Congressional consideration of the important FTA with one of the U.S.’s major trading partners. See CEI’s recent Issue Analysis on the U.S.-Korea FTA.
Sabotaging America’s Friends, Helping Its Enemies
The Washington Post has an editorial debunking false claims made by House leaders against the proposed trade agreement with Colombia. “There are two important countries at the north of South America. One, Colombia, has a democratic government that, with strong support from the Clinton and Bush administrations, has bravely sought to defeat brutal militias of the left and right and to safeguard human rights. The other, Venezuela, has a repressive government that has undermined media freedoms, forcibly nationalized industries, rallied opposition to the United States and, recent evidence suggests, supported terrorist groups inside Colombia.” Yet House leaders ”focus their criticism and advocacy on the former, to the benefit of the latter.” Indeed, they have pushed through special tax breaks for an oil company controlled by Venezuela’s anti-American dictator, even as they seek to undermine Colombia’s pro-American government and block a trade agreement that would create even more economic growth in American than in Colombia.
The Post also has a short interview with Colombia’s president, Alvaro Uribe, about trade and terrorism. “A staunch U.S. ally in a region where anti-American sentiment is fashionable, Uribe has successfully fought the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which the United States considers a terrorist group, and has combated drug traffickers.”
Bandow Chatters Away on Globalization
Last fall I spoke on globalization at the John Locke Foundation, a state-based think tank headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina. It’s a great group. Of course, I’m not just saying that because they have put up a video of an interview with me on globalization. (There’s a transcript too, if you’d prefer that method.)
House Leaders Wipe Out Jobs, Increase Trade Deficit by Blocking Pro-American Trade Deal, Even As They Coddle America’s Enemies
House leaders blocked the House from even voting on a trade deal between the U.S. and Colombia that would have cut America’s trade deficit and created jobs by increasing exports to Colombia by more than it would have increased imports from Colombia. So reports Robert J. Samuelson in the Washington Post. The result, he notes, is lost jobs in American manufacturing, such as at Whirlpool “plants in Ohio, Arkansas, and Iowa” that export “refrigerators, washer-dryers and dishwashers to Colombia.” The trade agreement would have eliminated more Colombian trade barriers to American exports than American trade barriers to Colombian imports, increasing employment in the U.S. by even more than employment in Colombia. House leaders have made false claims and relied on shifting pretexts to oppose the jobs-creating trade deal.
While blocking a trade agreement with Colombia’s democratically-elected, pro-American government, House leaders were supporting special tax breaks for an oil company controlled by Venezuela’s anti-American, anti-Semitic dictator, Hugo Chavez, who has hired liberal former Congressman Joe Kennedy to shill for him.
Colombia trade agreement — Democratic leaders ignore consequences of defeat
As I noted yesterday, the Bush Administration on April 7 sent to Congress a transmittal letter and implementing legislation for the U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement (TPA) to Congress. Congress will then have 90 days to consider the legislation.
But prospects for its passage are uncertain, given the anti-trade, anti-globalization sentiment among Democratic policymakers, spurred on by union campaigns against free trade. Leading Democrats have singled out this agreement for fierce opposition charging that violence against union leaders in Colombia is condoned by the Colombian government. In this election year, Democratic presidential candidates in their bitter primary battles have focused on trade as the cause of all economic ills in industrial states and have ignored more valid reasons, such as technology and increased productivity. Previous trade agreements, especially the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) among the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, have been the rallying points for a call to pause before committing to future trade agreements and to undo some past ones.
Hostility to the Colombia TPA is a paradox for a host of reasons – economic and national security issues, credibility and trust with other trading partners, leadership in the world trading system, economic opportunity for Colombians, and, ultimately, fairness.
As soon as the President signed the transmittal letter, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY) issued a press statement saying they would not support the agreement and charging that the Administration had bypassed protocol by not consulting with Congress.
The April 7 statement said:
President Bush’s statement today regarding his unprecedented decision to send a free trade agreement to Congress without following established protocols of Congressional consultation is counter-productive, jeopardizing prospects for its passage. Under present circumstances, we cannot support the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.
Contrary to that assertion, throughout the process of negotiating the trade agreement, Congressional leaders have been closely involved. And, in fact, last May, even after the Colombia FTA was signed, Democratic leaders flexing their muscles insisted on a new “trade deal” with the Administration, through which pending and future trade agreements would have to include stringent and enforceable labor and environmental provisions.
Those provisions devised by Democratic leaders were duly incorporated into the U.S.-Colombia trade pact, even though to re-negotiate a signed agreement was a slap in the face to Colombian President Uribe. With those changes, one would think that the Democrats – now that they got what the unions wanted – would have supported the trade agreement.
But no, political considerations intervened in the form of the 2008 election year, fierce primary contests, and a strong union drive to defeat the trade agreement and to support anti-trade policymakers.
What is most disappointing is that Rep. Charles Rangel is part of the attack on the trade agreement. The powerful Chairman of the House Ways and Means had earlier said he’s not supporting the Colombia agreement, yet he has been an eloquent and active opponent of trade sanctions on Cuba now that Fidel Castro has turned over the reins of government to his brother Raoul.
As Rep. Rangel noted at that time:
With fresh eyes, we can look anew at our neighbor 90 miles south as a place where regular Americans enjoy enormous popularity and the ability to influence events towards a more open and democratic society. Our embargo has failed, and so we can test the effectiveness of active contacts between our people in bringing about positive results.
Rep. Rangel’s further words on Cuba and how the U.S. has weakened its credibility “in the hemisphere” relate even more so to Colombia:
Our standing in the world has taken a critical blow, thanks to our stubborn inability to amend failed policy. Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has exploited our position to weaken our credibility among other countries in the hemisphere. We have shunned our allies in the Caribbean, like the great Michael Manley of Jamaica, simply because he was friendly with Cuba. We allow China to increase its influence in the world and exploit oil discovered on the island nation’s shores. We will likely one day need these countries – including Cuba – to be on our side, but a policy and politics of obstinate silence cuts against that interest.
Policymakers concerned about national security, hemispheric cooperation, and building closer ties with U.S. allies seem to be turning a blind eye to the potential repercussions of a defeat of the U.S.-Colombia trade agreement. They indeed are showing, in Rep. Rangel’s words, “a stubborn inability to amend failed policy.” If the trade agreement goes down in flames, expect Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to gloat as he expands his leadership and influence in the Andean region and elsewhere in Latin America.
-
About Us
OpenMarket.org is the staff blog of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. We believe that people improve their lives not through government regulation, but by making their own choices in a free marketplace. -
Search
-
Categories
Agriculture
Bureaucrash
CEI in the City
Culture
Economic Liberty
Energy
Environment
Global Warming
Healthcare Reform
Insurance
Intellectual Property
International
Legal
Mobility
Nanny State
Nano & Biotech
Odds & Ends
Personal Liberty
Politics as Usual
Precaution & Risk
Privacy
Sanctimony
Tech & Telecom
Trade
-
RSS Center
