Our Sovereign Rights Are in Foreign Control, Our Jobs Are Disappearing

Years ago, the world's corporate elite lusted over the wealth generated by the American economy. So, they devised the concept of globalization and created multi-national 'free-trade' pacts such as NAFTA, WTO and GATS, which allowed them access to our markets to partake of our wealth.

Originally, it was done under the guise of restoring war-torn Europe and Asia, but these countries are now more than able to compete on their own without our help or subsidies. Yet these pacts are still in play today, growing in number and power to the detriment of the American people.

The WTO (World Trade Organization) has now become the world’s super government. Congress is prohibited from passing legislation that violates its bylaws. In other words, our agreement with the WTO curtails what laws Congress is allowed to pass concerning US industrial policies. The WTO is fixed so that each member country has only one vote with no veto powers for anyone. Even though the United States is the benefactor, it only has equal footing with every developing country with cheap goods to dump on our markets.

WTO bylaws include:

• Congress must change U.S. laws to conform to WTO statutes.
• All decisions will be determined by the votes of WTO members.
• The WTO will settle all trade disputes, monitor national responses and enforce its decisions. WTO rulings are final. The WTO can impose trade sanctions and fines on the U.S, if we don't comply. If the U.S. loses a WTO dispute, plaintiff nations may select which US industries will be sanctioned.
• All WTO members are subject to amendments voted for by two-thirds of the members.

China is a special case in point. Its unchecked flooding of our markets with cheaply made goods has created around a quarter of the $765 billion U.S. trade deficit. The Economic Policy Institute reported that, between 1997 and 2006, the massive U.S.-China trade imbalance took 2,166,000 US jobs, the bulk of which (1.8 million) were lost after China joined the WTO in 2001. Proponents of this affiliation wrongly predicted that China's trade surplus would decline and U.S. employment would bounce back.

The WTO and other "free-trade" pacts are developing into a virtual shadow, one-world dictatorship with the authority to override the sovereignty and laws of the U.S. These are intolerable conditions that most people are not aware of.

Americans have always been proud of the fact that we have lived in a 'free' country, but are we really free if we are forced to live under these dictatorial mandates? Request from your congressional leaders that these bylaws are erased or demand we get out of the WTO.

The above has been excerpted from an article by Dan Merica. Merica is a political cartoonist and commentator. He publishes on his website cartoons-political.com. Email him at danmerica@netzero.net