[rescue] God bless America

[Charles Redmond]

> Chad Fernandez <fernande at internet1.net> rescue at sunhelp.org Re: [rescue] God bless AmericaReply-To: rescue at sunhelp.org
>Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 01:17:07 -0400
>
>Charles Redmond wrote:
>
>> >OK, we drop the tariffs and many of our farms will go out of business.  Who needs farms.  Who needs the food?

The aussumption here is no-one else could pick up the slack. I
think that assumption is incorrect in some cases.
>
>> SO you saying it's ok for the usa to impose and use international restrictions on others who don't play by "free trade" rules but when the USA has industries involved they must be protected?
>
>Many countries have tariffs, each country tries to protect various
>industries.  Does that surprise you?  We do have a trade deficit, btw.  
However the us supposedly wants free trade. It appears however what the USA wants is free access to overseas markets but restricted access to our own. You have a trade defecit for many reasons. So do we as it happens. I think Japan is more a contributor to that situation.

>> Complete double standards. I also think you overestimate the capability of some us agriculture. Specifcally with lamb we are talking about a domestic market, yours.
>
>Lamb?  That's more exotic than what most of us think of..... it isn't
>basic, like wheat, soy, corn, beef, pork, etc.
And that's exactly my point, in this case the tarrifs had nothing to do with the arguments you cite. It was domestic consumption, and a comparatively small industry. So the driver was purely the US political adjenda. I will point out that the issue has been resolved.
But only after a WTO finding against the US and a two week grace period given by Australia to the US to do something.
Are there arguments for protecting domestic industry, sure there are.
But don't use double speak about "free trade" when what is meant is "trade on our terms"


Charles



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