Even-Handedness in Trade
Good on the Government of Canada. We're not the only country with a legitimate grievance against unfair trade practises of the United States, but as their next-door neighbour and closest trading partner, we do seem to bear the lion's share of the disadvantages inherent in trading with them. Yes, we protest, we point to formal legal agreements co-signed by each country, but the United States is their own authority, legal documents be damned.
They're big enough, powerful enough, wealthy enough, sufficiently self-assured to get away with it, each and every time. But Canada isn't completely supine, although it's fair to say that frustration and irritation we suffer is enough at times to make us want to hide in a cave and shout out "enough already!". And having vented our frustration, come creeping back to the "bargaining" table and mumble, all right, have it your way.
But "their way" is so clearly unfair, it's infuriating and unethical and we have to gulp pretty hard to accept it. If there were some way to render a metaphorical thumping to knock some semblance of fairness into the American psyche we'd do it, but that's just aimless dreaming. Yet here is Canada finally girding itself to fight with the United States over farm subsidies. Again, I might add. But this time with the armour of true conviction and determination.
The tens of billions of dollars that Washington hands out to its farmers is all very nice domestically as long as the U.S. taxpayer doesn't mind ponying up. After all, agriculture is a primary resource, a much-needed one, for without the avails of farming where would we be? So a country's taxpayer almost automatically agrees that farmers are due full financial consideration for growing the foods that we all eat. Ah, but such handsome subsidies encourage overproduction.
Which means either that a whole lot of perishable product is going to be stored, or that it gets dumped on the market (a questionable practise in and of itself and generally seen as disadvantageous to the unwilling market which becomes a recipient) or that the U.S. taxpayer feels justified in providing cheap agricultural products to other countries. How very generous. In the process, however, there results a distortion of trading practises.
The U.S. Farm Bill creates an unfair market advantage for the United States at the considerable expense of Canadian farmers. Canadian farmers, after all, have to make a living too; they have to be able to sell their produce fairly at a fair price to enable them also to continue farming, to shore up the Canadian economy, to provide Canadians with domestic-based farm goods. But the price-based support programmes are trade-distorting and do need reform.
Bloody damn! Not going to happen in a hurry and without a successful push for fairness by the government of Canada. Fact is, the new strength of the Democracts in Congress and the Senate and the possibility that the Democrats may soon also take the White House augurs ill for the success in persuading the U.S. to view their billions in subsidies through the lens of fairness.
Canada has a history of winning cases of this kind brought against the United States before the World Trade Organization. And it's not because the WTO likes Canada better than it does the U.S. It is because the United States practises unfair trade advantages by rewarding their farm lobbyists with huge subsidies which impact unfairly upon their trade partners.
The current U.S. Secretary for Agriculture, Mike Johanns has argued for a new Farm Bill that is "equitable, predictable and beyond challenge" in the WTO. The U.S. lost a trade dispute with Brazil in 2004 over cotton subsidies. Mexico too, among other trading countries has seen its domestic agriculture sector suffer as a result of unfair trade practises by the U.S. Trade liberalization where poor countries of the world can be given a leg up can't commence because farming in underdeveloped countries is overwhelmed by the dumping of subsidized agricultural products.
There's a better way to offer a solution to the current stalemate. Hello there in Washington - anyone listening?
They're big enough, powerful enough, wealthy enough, sufficiently self-assured to get away with it, each and every time. But Canada isn't completely supine, although it's fair to say that frustration and irritation we suffer is enough at times to make us want to hide in a cave and shout out "enough already!". And having vented our frustration, come creeping back to the "bargaining" table and mumble, all right, have it your way.
But "their way" is so clearly unfair, it's infuriating and unethical and we have to gulp pretty hard to accept it. If there were some way to render a metaphorical thumping to knock some semblance of fairness into the American psyche we'd do it, but that's just aimless dreaming. Yet here is Canada finally girding itself to fight with the United States over farm subsidies. Again, I might add. But this time with the armour of true conviction and determination.
The tens of billions of dollars that Washington hands out to its farmers is all very nice domestically as long as the U.S. taxpayer doesn't mind ponying up. After all, agriculture is a primary resource, a much-needed one, for without the avails of farming where would we be? So a country's taxpayer almost automatically agrees that farmers are due full financial consideration for growing the foods that we all eat. Ah, but such handsome subsidies encourage overproduction.
Which means either that a whole lot of perishable product is going to be stored, or that it gets dumped on the market (a questionable practise in and of itself and generally seen as disadvantageous to the unwilling market which becomes a recipient) or that the U.S. taxpayer feels justified in providing cheap agricultural products to other countries. How very generous. In the process, however, there results a distortion of trading practises.
The U.S. Farm Bill creates an unfair market advantage for the United States at the considerable expense of Canadian farmers. Canadian farmers, after all, have to make a living too; they have to be able to sell their produce fairly at a fair price to enable them also to continue farming, to shore up the Canadian economy, to provide Canadians with domestic-based farm goods. But the price-based support programmes are trade-distorting and do need reform.
Bloody damn! Not going to happen in a hurry and without a successful push for fairness by the government of Canada. Fact is, the new strength of the Democracts in Congress and the Senate and the possibility that the Democrats may soon also take the White House augurs ill for the success in persuading the U.S. to view their billions in subsidies through the lens of fairness.
Canada has a history of winning cases of this kind brought against the United States before the World Trade Organization. And it's not because the WTO likes Canada better than it does the U.S. It is because the United States practises unfair trade advantages by rewarding their farm lobbyists with huge subsidies which impact unfairly upon their trade partners.
The current U.S. Secretary for Agriculture, Mike Johanns has argued for a new Farm Bill that is "equitable, predictable and beyond challenge" in the WTO. The U.S. lost a trade dispute with Brazil in 2004 over cotton subsidies. Mexico too, among other trading countries has seen its domestic agriculture sector suffer as a result of unfair trade practises by the U.S. Trade liberalization where poor countries of the world can be given a leg up can't commence because farming in underdeveloped countries is overwhelmed by the dumping of subsidized agricultural products.
There's a better way to offer a solution to the current stalemate. Hello there in Washington - anyone listening?
Labels: Canada/US Relations
posted by Pieface | 5:46 PM
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