Hong Kong WTO Summit - Part 3
Hong Kong WTO Summit - Part 3
Date: Tuesday, December 13, 2005 2:19 PM
JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER
December 13, 2005 No. 1385
So far the Doha Round of WTO meetings in Hong Kong are more about
quarreling than negotiating. At issue: many nations are complaining that
United States agricultural exports are subsidized and therefore pose unfair
competition to farmers in other nations. If any of you doubt the
seriousness of this issue and what is at stake, there is credible evidence
that under NAFTA the huge agribusiness conglomerates in the U.S. put
Mexican farmers out of business, and forced them to come to the U.S.
illegally to survive. Mexico certainly understands what is at stake!
India is insisting that the U.S. must increase the number of H-1B visas,
and yet they seem unwilling to compromise on agriculture. Indian farmers
justifiably don't want to compete with subsidized American agribusineses,
but at the same time they want unlimited access to the U.S. labor market.
The U.S., on the other hand, seems to be saying to India "if you won't buy
our beans and rice we won't allow you to have more H-1Bs". India sees
things differently:
Pillai sought to dispel the belief that India will compromise
on agriculture if it got more H1B visas for its labour force.
Wed not allow the livelihood and food security of people to
be compromised.
And here is another excerpt:
"We have asked the government to seek a deadline for visa
access to developed countries for our skilled professionals
at the Hong Kong meeting," said Manab Majumdar, team leader
on WTO issues at the Federation of Indian Chambers of
Commerce and Industry (Ficci).
Of course the affects these visas have on U.S. workers don't get much
discussion. There are groups mobilizing all over the world to protect
farmers in third world countries against the exploitive WTO, but U.S. white
collar workers have no such support. Very little is written about the harm
that increases in visas and outsourcing will have on U.S. workers. It's
rather interesting that when push comes to shove, India is willing to
sacrifice its own high-tech workers if their farmers are hurt:
Despite this the government is prepared to put the interests
of its poor farmers first. Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath
has made it clear in an interview for Newsnight that he will be
prepared to sacrifice improvement in trade for the software
sector in order to help India's poor farmers.
How's this for international hypocrisy?
Mr Nath reserves his strongest criticisms for America.
"The US is an offensive exporter.
These trade negotiations are nothing more than an open auction to decide
how trades and services will be exported and imported throughout the world.
American jobs are just another commodity to be bartered in the global
economy.
I believe the current debate in Congress over the increasi in H-1Bs is
directly related to the WTO trade talks (see previous newsletter on House
debate over guest worker visas). President Bush wants to push an increase
in H-1B to appease China and India, and he has given Portman the go-ahead
to use H-1B as a bargaining chip:
Mr Portman told the Indian Chamber of Commerce last month that
he was hopeful he could persuade the US Congress to agree to
increase the number of temporary visas as part of the negotiations.
The last article I included has some interesting insights into all facets
of the WTO negotiations, including this passage:
Even more controversial are the negotiations around what the
WTO calls Mode 4, or the "natural movement of persons."
Developing countries generally want more access for their
citizens to migrate freely and to work in the United States
and the EU. India, for example, has made the permanent
codification of the current standard of 65,000 H1B visas for
highly-educated workers to enter the United States a principal
demand (admittedly a move some consider strange as a key
development strategy for a country of more than a billion
people). But easing immigration is not exactly popular in the
United States or Europe. Some labor rights groups are concerned
that H1B visas amount to an "internal outsourcing" where U.S.
jobs physically stay in the country but are filled by foreigners.
And immigrants rights activists are sounding the alarm bells
about the lack of labor rights for immigrants allowed in on H1B
visas. In any case, U.S. and EU negotiators have made only vague
and minimal commitments to the developing countries on this issue.
It's unlikely that these trade negotiations will result in anything good
for American workers, so hopefully the rancor in Hong Kong will continue,
and the meetings will be deadlocked.
Articles Used for this Newsletter
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=83899
Deadlock: India, Brazil slam EU & US
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/06dcba0a-683c-11da-bfce-0000779e2340.html
US warning on Hong Kong trade meeting
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=63698&version=1&template_id=48&parent_id=28
India to push on services at WTO talks
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4525784.stm
Why India puts its farmers first
http://www.dollarsandsense.org/1105james.html
Will the WTO Strike Out in Hong Kong?
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http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=83899
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Deadlock: India, Brazil slam EU & US
WTO TALKS: G20 will not budge on agriculture and without a pact here, there
would be no deal
Vikas Dhoot
Hong Kong, December 12 India and Brazil on Monday slammed the EU and US for
their obstinacy on agricultural subsidies and warned that no other issue
will be negotiated in the Hong Kong World Trade Organisation (WTO)
ministerial talks without sorting out the structural imbalances in the farm
sector.
The attack by negotiators of the two sides at a meeting with farmers
lobbies from the developing world on the eve of the meet clearly indicated
where the talks are headed - a deadlock was. Unless there was full
satisfaction on agricultural issues, the G-20 and the G-33 nations do not
see further progress in the Doha Round on agriculture, they said.
Speaking on behalf of the G-20 coalition, which represents 70 per cent of
the worlds farmers, a top Indian negotiator said there is a
deficit of trust between the developing and developed world
over the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) that was kicked off in the Uruguay
Round. The AoA, additional secretary, commerce ministry, G K Pillai told
the assembled farmer groups, was skewed in favour of developed countries.
The first and foremost priority of the G-20 is to substantially
reduce the trade distorting domestic support extended by EU and US to their
farmers.
Agriculture is the most structurally imbalanced sector in world trade
today, say analysts. Farmers in the EU and US enjoy internal as well as
export subsidies of over $300 billion a year adversely affecting the
livelihoods of developing country farmers.
The current US proposal on agriculture actually allows them to further
increase their subsidies to farmers from the current $21 billion to $22.87
billion till 2016, say Indian officials. The EUs proposal, on the other
hand, is a bit more effective, offering a subsidy cut from 66 billion Euros
to 34 billion Euros.
Pillai sought to dispel the belief that India will compromise on
agriculture if it got more H1B visas for its labour force. Wed not
allow the livelihood and food security of people to be compromised.
Since 1995 till 2005, the developed countries have enjoyed a peace
clause that has prevented developing ones from dragging them to the
WTOs Dispute Settlement Forum, even if the US and the EU didnt stick
to their promises on reducing trade distorting subsidies to farmers. This
clause expired in December 2004 and the US proposal on agriculture asks for
an extension of the same, for another ten years.
But the G-20 countries have opposed this and threaten to approach the
Dispute Settlement Authority, if the EU and the US try to shift their
subsidies under the garb thats considered to be non-trade
distorting by the WTO.
Just 25,000 cotton farmers in the US enjoy subsidies of $3.8 billion,
while millions of developing world farmers are losing their
livelihoods, Pillai said. Slamming the propaganda being spread by the
EU and US against India and Brazil on reducing industrial tariffs, Pillai
said that India, Brazil and Argentina are prepared for a 50 per cent
cut in industrial tariffs by the developing world, as opposed to the 66 per
cent mooted by the EU and the US. They are only willing to cut their
tariffs by 20-22 per cent, yet they slam us for not doing anything
constructive on NAMA.
Pillai also lambasted researchers from think-tanks and organisations as the
World Bank. Just prior to the Uruguay Round, reports said a 25 per
cent cut in developed countries subsidies to farmers would help
developing countries farmers as commodity prices would go up. Yet, these
countries maintained, even increased their subsidy levels and commodity
prices have crashed by 20-30 per cent. Now, similar papers are coming out,
advocating a cut in industrial tariffs to 0 per cent.
Firm stand
HONG KONG: India will not be rushed into any global trade deal that
displaces millions of its farmers and does not give greater market access
to products of export interest to India, Commerce and Industry Minister
Kamal Nath said on the eve of the sixth Ministerial Conference of the World
Trade Organisation (WTO) that begins here on Tuesday. ENS
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http://news.ft.com/cms/s/06dcba0a-683c-11da-bfce-0000779e2340.html
US warning on Hong Kong trade meeting
Friday, December 9
In a strongly worded letter this week to Rob Portman, the US trade
representative, a group of senators led by moderate Democrat Dianne
Feinstein of California demanded that he state publicly before the Hong
Kong meeting that the US will not agree to any increase in visas for
skilled professionals as part of the Doha talks. They warned that failure
to do so could force them to oppose any final agreement.
The issue is a key one for India, which is under pressure from the US and
the European Union to open its heavily protected market for manufacturing
goods.
Kamal Nath, Indias commerce and industry minister, said on Wednesday he
would push the visas issue because of Indias strong comparative
advantage in services, and said he was disappointed in the response from
developed countries.
Mr Portman told the Indian Chamber of Commerce last month that he was
hopeful he could persuade the US Congress to agree to increase the number
of temporary visas as part of the negotiations. In the previous Uruguay
round agreement, the US agreed to bind its annual cap of 65,000 H-1B visas
for skilled workers.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=63698&version=1&template_id=48&parent_id=28
India to push on services at WTO talks
Publish Date: Wednesday,7 December, 2005, at 08:22 AM Doha Time
NEW DELHI: India should use the Hong Kong round of global trade talks to
push for more overseas work visas for software engineers in exchange for
opening its booming services sector, analysts and industry groups say.
With 50% of India's gross domestic product linked to services such as
software, outsourcing, retail and banking, developed countries are eager to
tap the now restricted sectors.
But India, a leader along with Brazil of the influential G-20 group of
developing nations, wants to make sure that in return its companies that
bid for lucrative services work in developed countries are able to get work
visas.
"India should push its comparative advantage in offering low-cost services
by making concessions on agriculture to get more access for its tech
workers abroad," said Pratap Mehta, president and chief executive of the
New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research.
The latest World Trade Organisation (WTO) round of talks begun in Qatar in
2001 have floundered, with developing countries including India arguing
that government support to European and US farmers artificially depresses
prices, effectively forcing their produce out of export markets.
Almost two-thirds of India's workforce is linked to agriculture.
"Politically, it's not so easy to push for a deal on services unless there
is a breakthrough on agriculture though most people would agree that India
would benefit from opening the services sector," Mehta said.
India now employs 700,000 computer software professionals, up from 7,000 a
decade ago, and many of them work abroad using special visas on contracts
won by local technology companies.
India's largest market for software services, the US, has a cap of 65,000
on such workers under its H1B visa programme, with the majority going to
India.
But US companies, citing a shortage of skilled tech workers, have lobbied
to raise the number by 30,000 and the proposal is pending before the US
Congress.
As a result, the government is under pressure from Indian tech companies
that earned $28bn in the last financial year to open up the services
sector, according to the industry lobby group, the National Association for
Software and Services Companies.
Other business lobby groups have pushed the government on the issue as
well. "We have asked the government to seek a deadline for visa access to
developed countries for our skilled professionals at the Hong Kong
meeting," said Manab Majumdar, team leader on WTO issues at the Federation
of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci). "The developed
countries should reduce if not eliminate caps altogether and at the same
time move to eliminate bans on outsourcing as have been passed by some
states in the US while India opens up its own markets."
New Delhi said last month that it would prepare a proposal for the Hong
Kong meeting that would push for greater visa access for Indian workers
along with some proposals to open its own services sector.
"India will be submitting its revised offer on services to the WTO
shortly," Commerce Minister Kamal Nath told Parliament recently. "It is
expected that other countries would respond favourably to our requests of
increased market access."
Poor countries such as India, where almost 300mn people live on less than a
dollar-a-day, have until now resisted speeding up discussions on opening up
trade in their industrial goods and in services until the farming issue is
resolved.
But in the past week, India said it was willing to take action allowing
rich nations greater access to the service sector, ahead of the latest
round of talks between December 13 and 18. AFP
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4525784.stm
Why India puts its farmers first
By David Loyn
BBC Newsnight
Of all of the poorer countries now pushing for trade justice through the
World Trade Organization (WTO), India has most to lose if a deal is
delayed.
India needs a liberalisation of agreements to help its service industries,
particularly in the software sector. But despite this the government is
prepared to put the interests of its poor farmers first.
Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath has made it clear in an interview for
Newsnight that he will be prepared to sacrifice improvement in trade for
the software sector in order to help India's poor farmers.
"Agriculture for us is not commerce, it is subsistence," he says. "The
developed countries have subsidies of $1bn a day, and that is against less
than $1 a day in earnings for 300 million people in India."
Agricultural subsidies in the richest countries in the world - the EU,
Japan and America - are now the main sticking point in the trade talks
which have begun in Hong Kong.
The talks are a further attempt at a breakthrough after negotiations
stalled at the Cancun summit two years ago.
Cancun was supposed to move the so-called Doha "development round" forward
- but it stalled amid new optimism among developing countries, including
India, that this time they would control the agenda.
Services are an important part of India's future... we need to find the
right balance
Phiroz Vandrevala, Tata Consultancy Services
Mr Nath reserves his strongest criticisms for America.
"The US is an offensive exporter. If they are going to enter the world
market with subsidised prices, it is the Indian farmer who is not competing
against the US farmer but the US Treasury."
Service sector worries
The emergence in Cancun of the G20 group of nations, including India, China
and Brazil, was one of the key factors in building a new confidence among
developing world states that they could get a fair deal in trade.
This round of negotiations was supposed to remedy inequalities of the past,
but it also includes new agreements to open up trade in manufactured goods
and the service sector.
India's willingness to sacrifice improvements for its high-value software
manufacturers has led to some concern among them.
For Phiroz Vandrevala, who heads Tata Consultancy Services, services are a
key ingredient in India's future.
"Clearly we need to get an agreement in that area, and will have to give up
some of our obstinacy in agriculture or some of the impact it could have in
agriculture which could have some political fallout because of the large
numbers of people involved," he says.
"We need to find the right balance."
Protecting the poor
Under the terms of the WTO no deal is signed until everything is agreed, so
the success of the whole round now rests on movement in agriculture.
India has gone further than some other members of the G20 in protecting not
only the interests of its poor farmers, but the poorest elsewhere in the
world.
The Congress government in India depends on left-wing parties, including
the Communist Party of India, for support. They have insisted on blocking
Tesco from opening supermarkets in India, which would be far harder to do
if the new WTO deal liberalising the service sector came into effect.
The move has angered some opponents of the government, who see this as a
throwback to the past when India's economy was closed to the world.
"This is very typical of the old style US-bashing, Europe-bashing sort of
thing, as though there were some votes to be won," says Gurchuran Das, the
former head of Proctor and Gamble in India.
But the government has some academic support for its principled stance.
"I think the effect of Tesco coming would be disastrous - in particular
because of the huge loss of employment in the petty retail sector, lots of
small traders all over, in both urban and rural India," says Professor
Jayati Ghosh, of Delhi's JNU University.
"And I think the other thing is that while you would have some groups of
direct producers gaining at the beginning, over time you would find that
small producers could not compete."
Deals blocked
The opening up of markets has been the engine of prosperity for some
countries in the globalised world, but the process may have gone far
enough, according to critics such as Professor Ghosh.
I asked her if failure at Hong Kong would be a victory.
"Oh yes," she says.
"Well let me put it this way: I think a bad agreement would be a terrible
failure for most of our population, so no agreement is not a victory, but
certainly not a failure.
"I don't think we are going to get many gains on agriculture, and if we
don't I think it is pointless to try to give in on anything else."
So deals on the most advanced products in the world in research &
development and software are blocked by the price of basic commodities -
corn, cotton, rice, milk. It is this deadlock which could destroy the first
attempt to get a new world trade deal in the 21st Century.
David Loyn's report will be broadcast on Newsnight on 13 December at 22:30
GMT.
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http://www.dollarsandsense.org/1105james.html
Will the WTO Strike Out in Hong Kong?
The December meeting could be a repeat of Seattle and Canczn -- or the
rich countries may have some new tricks up their sleeves.
BY DEBORAH JAMES
This December, delegates from 148 countries will meet to shape the future
of the worlds nearly 6 billion people. From December 13 to 18, the World
Trade Organization will hold its sixth major meeting, known as a
ministerial, in Hong Kong, China, to negotiate on such crucial matters as
the fate of public services, the global food supply, and jobs and
development.
The WTO is the global promoter and enforcer of the ideology that "free
trade" is the best way to foster economic growth and, hence, development.
The theory might sound great if you dont look at the record. For
example, in the 25 years Latin American governments have submitted to the
prescription to open their economies up to free flows of goods and capital,
economic growth has ground to a near halt, marking only about a half a
percent per capita income growth per year. Thats left 222 million people
-- an outrageous 43% of the regions population -- impoverished. In fact,
the fastest growing economies in Latin America are those that are rejecting
orthodox "free trade" doctrine, primarily Venezuela and Argentina. And in
China, growing rural poverty is linked to the countrys 2001 accession to
the WTO, according to a study the World Bank released last February.
Moreover, the fine print of WTO agreements often turns out to have more to
do with protecting the interests of multinational corporations and specific
sectors in the economies of the rich countries than with actual adherence
to the doctrine of free trade. Ten years into the WTO process, for example,
the United States and the European Union are still refusing to give up
their agricultural subsidies, which have swamped poor countries with
artificially cheap food imports and forced countless farmers off the land
across the global South.
Six years ago, the world watched as activists from across the United States
shut down the third WTO ministerial meeting in Seattle. Yet while the WTO
remains a grave threat to communities, the environment, democracy, and
global development, only a handful of organizations are gearing up for the
Hong Kong ministerial.
Strike One, Strike Two
By 1999, developing country governments had begun to recognize that the
WTO, though masquerading as a neutral arbiter of trade rules, was actually
facilitating a giant corporate power grab, threatening democracy, natural
resources, and labor rights across the globe. Over 50,000 people came to
Seattle to say no to the WTOs corporate agenda, successfully shutting
down the meetings on the first day, November 30, 1999. Activists wanted to
build a world where life values -- like the right to good jobs, clean
water, health care, education, democracy and sovereignty -- trumped the
money values of the WTO. Emboldened by massive civil society resistance,
the African, Caribbean, and other least-developed country representatives
literally walked out of the meetings, causing the negotiations to collapse.
Strike one.
The fourth ministerial took place in 2001 in Qatar, a country where
free-speech rights are effectively nonexistent. The rich countries promised
that this round of negotiations would focus on development and the needs of
the poorest countries -- an implicit acknowledgment of the unfairness of
the existing system. But behind closed doors and out of the civil-society
and media spotlight, hard pressure could be applied. Few countries actually
participated in the negotiations, but the United States and the EU bullied
and arm-twisted all member countries into signing onto a largely corporate
trade agenda -- and thus succeeded in launching the so-called Doha
Development Round, a misnomer of epic proportions.
In 2003 the process moved to Canczn, Mexico, where the rich countries
sought to expand the scope of the WTO, pressing for agreements in new areas
such as investment at the fifth ministerial. But they didnt count on the
rise of a remarkable new alliance: Brazil, India, South Africa, China,
Indonesia, Venezuela, and 14 other countries created a negotiating block
representing over half of the worlds population. This "Group of 20"
argued that the unfair global agricultural system had to be cleaned up
first, before new issues could come onto the table. The tragic suicide of
Korean farmer Lee Kyung Hae brought the collective rage of the outside
civil-society mobilization inside the closed gates of the negotiating
halls. Most important, the least developed countries stood their ground
against the intransigence of the rich countries and refused to accept an
expansion in the scope of WTO agreements without a genuine development
agenda. Strike two.
Then, in the summer of 2004, a funny thing happened. Major WTO decisions
are supposed to be made at the biannual ministerial meetings, but those
gatherings kept striking out. So the United States and the EU turned a
General Council meeting in Geneva into a decision-making forum where, out
of sight of teeming protests and behind closed doors in invitation-only
"green rooms," the WTO was saved from a third strike. The United States and
the EU pulled India and Brazil (along with Australia) into a meeting of the
so-called Five Interested Parties (FIPs). With false assurances that
agriculture would be fairly reformed, they cobbled together a minimal
consensus to get the negotiations back on track. After subduing Brazil and
India, they pressured the rest of the members of the WTO into going along
with the new patched-up framework agreement -- sight unseen. Thus the WTO
was given a walk, and is up at bat at the next ministerial this December.
The WTO convened another General Council meeting in Geneva this July that
was supposed to be a major step forward. Fortunately, there was anything
but consensus. When WTO spinmeisters start to downplay expectations for
upcoming meetings, that usually means the "free trade" juggernaut is
stalled. Thats good news: global justice activists have reached a broad
consensus that blocking any new agreements within the existing WTO
framework is critical. But as with the passage of CAFTA in the U.S.
Congress this summer, you never know what kinds of buy-offs, procedural
tricks, or pork barrel the Bush administration is willing to parlay to get
a deal.
Here is a preview of what is at stake in the negotiations this December in
three key areas: public services, agriculture, and jobs.
Taking the Public Out of Public Services
Traditionally, international trade agreements were focused primarily on
trade in goods. But in recent years, corporations and their government
allies have fought to expand the scope of these agreements to include
services as well. The U.S. governments agenda is to gain access to the
worlds financial and energy services markets for U.S. corporations. This
would give the green light for U.S. banks like Citigroup and JP Morgan
Chase to control the worlds capital and banking industries. And it would
allow U.S. corporations like Halliburton and Bechtel to control the
worlds energy services -- everything that has to do with getting oil out
of the earth and into the market. Also on the chopping block are education,
water, and health care -- in other words, the services that citizens of
rich and poor countries alike expect their governments to provide to all,
not merely to those who can afford to purchase them in the marketplace.
Evidently, developing countries arent lining up fast enough to privatize
their public services. (Sometimes privatizations have been halted by public
pressure; for example, in Cochabamba, Bolivia, massive protest forced the
government to reverse the handover of the citys water system to a
private corporation in 2000.) In response, the United States and the EU are
pushing for an inflexible new bargaining framework, known as benchmarking,
that would set a high bar for the level of privatization countries must
allow. Developing-country negotiators have vehemently rejected the
benchmarking proposal at WTO meetings this summer and fall. But they face
great pressure to open up their public services to privatization and
liberalization, especially since the 2004 framework agreement linked
negotiations over services to the rest of the WTO agenda, essentially
telling poor countries that they will not get any of the changes they seek
in areas like agricultural subsidies unless they concede on services.
Even more controversial are the negotiations around what the WTO calls Mode
4, or the "natural movement of persons." Developing countries generally
want more access for their citizens to migrate freely and to work in the
United States and the EU. India, for example, has made the permanent
codification of the current standard of 65,000 H1B visas for
highly-educated workers to enter the United States a principal demand
(admittedly a move some consider strange as a key development strategy for
a country of more than a billion people). But easing immigration is not
exactly popular in the United States or Europe. Some labor rights groups
are concerned that H1B visas amount to an "internal outsourcing" where U.S.
jobs physically stay in the country but are filled by foreigners. And
immigrants rights activists are sounding the alarm bells about the lack
of labor rights for immigrants allowed in on H1B visas. In any case, U.S.
and EU negotiators have made only vague and minimal commitments to the
developing countries on this issue.
Food: To Eat or to Export?
Since the U.S. government abolished its supply management program in 1996,
agricultural oversupply has led to a price collapse. To bail out the
system, the government instituted subsidies to farmers, which
disproportionately benefit large-scale agribusiness over family farmers.
This crazy regime allows giant corporations like Monsanto and ConAgra to
dump artificially cheap food in developing countries, undercutting local
markets and pushing farmers off the land.
Export subsidies are supposed to be phased out under the WTO and other
free-trade regimes. But the rich countries, with stunning hypocrisy, have
largely won exemptions for the types of subsidies they use, while pushing
to prohibit the subsidies and regulations used by poor countries to protect
their domestic agriculture sectors. For example, about 70% of U.S.
agricultural subsidies fall into a loophole category called the Green Box.
Another loophole, the Blue Box, originally covered only those farm
subsidies that were linked to limits on crop production, to address the
vicious circle of oversupply, price drop, subsidy, oversupply, and so on.
Far from being phased out, though, the Blue Box was actually expanded in
the July 2004 framework agreement to cover subsidies without production
limits -- in order to accommodate some of the subsidies in the 2002 U.S.
farm bill, according to the advocacy group Focus on the Global South.
Developing countries have been demanding that the EU and the United States
cut back their agricultural subsidy programs and provide market access for
products like Central American sugar and Brazilian orange juice. But with
agribusiness in control of several key red states and the farm bill coming
up for reauthorization in Congress, its unlikely the Bush administration
will negotiate seriously on these issues in the near future.
Kicking Away the Ladder of Development
In another key area of negotiation, the WTO is pressuring governments to
lower tariffs on industrial products and natural resources
(Non-Agricultural Market Access, or NAMA, in WTO-speak). Using tariffs to
protect new and developing industries against competition from foreign
products is a cornerstone of industrial policy, one that every developed
country has used. But now rich countries want to prohibit the use of this
tool, effectively kicking away the ladder of development they themselves
ascended. According to the Third World Network, this would de-industrialize
many middle-income countries and prevent the industrialization of most of
Africa.
Not only would massive tariff reductions allow floods of cheap imported
products into poor countries, putting their own industries out of business,
it would also starve many small nations of the revenues they need to
finance health care and education. Tariffs are nothing but taxes on
corporations for the privilege of selling a product in a foreign country.
NAMA, then, can be understood as a massive corporate tax abolition scheme.
NAMA negotiators also want to eliminate so-called "non-tariff barriers"
such as bans on importing bacteria-contaminated food or mandates that
government agencies use energy from renewable sources, purchase Fair Trade
Certified coffee, or buy from companies that use sweatshop-free labor. The
NAMA framework deems these and other food-safety, health, environmental,
and labor regulations to be unfair trade barriers -- unfair, in other
words, to products that damage the environment, human health, or labor
rights. U.S. negotiators are also pushing within NAMA to eliminate tariffs
completely on forest, fishery, and mining products. Both tariffs and
regulations are tools governments can use to conserve resources and promote
environmentally sustainable development; the prospect of eliminating them
has environmentalists spinning.
Last Chance at Bat?
The Doha round negotiations have missed just about every major deadline
thus far: talks were supposed to have been wrapped up by January 2005, yet
are still stalled over disagreements on the basic framework. The new
deadline of December 2006 is not far off, considering that most of the
heavy lifting is still to be completed.
A meeting of the WTO General Council this October was suspended to allow
for the big powers plus India and Brazil -- the FIPs -- to hammer out the
elusive agricultural compromise. A new draft framework is expected by
December 15; early "pre-drafts" demonstrate an alarming trend in favor of
rich country corporate interests. If developing country governments,
supported by global civil society, can stand up to the arm-twisting and the
outrageous demands coming from the United States and the EU, the Hong Kong
ministerial could fall apart -- a tremendous blow to the WTOs
credibility. Then, perhaps, citizens and activists around the globe could
declare, "Three strikes and youre out!"
Deborah James is the Global Economy Director of Global Exchange,
www.globalexchange.org, a San Francisco-based human rights organization.
She runs a weekly listserve on global justice issues available at
http://www.globalexchange.org/getInvolved/lists.html. Contact her at
deborah@globalexchange.org.
WHAT CAN I DO?
Here are some resources for learning more and taking action:
The Citizens Trade Campaign is organizing a Congressional sign-on
letter to encourage legislators to commit to a fair trade policy, including
a re-orienting of our strategy in the WTO -- an effort led by Rep. Sherrod
Brown (D-Ohio). Call your Representative and ask that he or she sign. Visit
www.citizenstrade.org.
Citizens are organizing to pressure their state and local officials to
maintain any socially responsible purchasing policies they have and to
refuse to bind their government purchasing decisions to WTO rules. Contact
Sara Johnson at Public Citizen (sjohnson@citizen.org) to help ensure that
your local officials do not cede their governing mandate to an
unaccountable corporate trade body.
Support organizations that ally with and empower social movements in
the countries of the global South. Global Exchange, for example, works with
the Hemispheric Social Alliance, a Latin American network of anti-"free
trade" groups, helping them build capacity as they pressure their
countries negotiators to hold the line against U.S. and EU coercion
(www.globalexchange.org). The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
(www.tradeobservatory.org) and the Third World Network (www.twnside.org.sg)
monitor negotiations regularly in Geneva. Our World Is Not For Sale is a
global network of civil-society organizations fighting the WTO; visit
www.ourworldisnotforsale.org.
In December, call your local newspaper or radio station and ask that
they cover the WTO negotiations. Demand that they air interviews with
civil-society groups and poor-country representatives, not just with the
usual corporate and mainstream-economics suspects.
Build the alternative economy when you shop. Buying fair-trade
certified products like coffee, chocolate, and bananas demonstrates that
fair trade delivers more economic growth than so-called "free trade."
Socially responsible investments can bring financing back to community
needs. "Sweatfree" clothing makes a visible statement in support of fair
labor practices. Changing individual consumer behavior will not stop the
WTO, but it begins to create the building blocks of an alternative,
post-WTO economy. Visit www.greenfestivals.org; www.greenpages.org.
Issue #262. November/December 2005
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