WTO Secretly Hastening our Demise

The World Trade Organization is a secretive and undemocratic organization which interferes with sovereign decisions of the United States. It can alter our own policy preferences on international trade, industrial and agricultural protection and import-export quotas. The United States depends on trade – both imports and exports – for its survival and prosperity, and is thus subservient to the WTO and its decisions even when such decisions go against our own best interests.

With the public and embarrassing collapse of the Doha Round trade talks over the past several months the WTO has taken a major hit to its political clout. Instead of meeting – and bickering – out in the open, trade ministers expect to take their dealings behind closed doors in the future. They hope that such action will avoid the scrutiny of constituents back home who are often blamed for failed discussions.

In their back room meetings the world’s trade ministers will meet with one another to conspire against their own people for the benefit of a wealthy few. There are winners and losers from “free trade” in all countries, but the masses are often the ones who see the least benefit from our new globalized system. Sure, the volume of trade has increased exponentially over the years and citizens around the world have access to more goods and services than could have been imagined by generations past.

Nonetheless, the quality of life has hardly gotten better. All across the United States skilled and hard working adults have been laid off by the thousands in the past year, yet “free trade” advocates expect them to be happy with that fact that they can buy a European car or a Japanese cell phone for Christmas. Students are dragged down for decades by their educational debts and are finding their collegiate careers increasingly devalued when they cannot find a job, yet they are told to be content with their “Made in China” clothing.

Our trade representatives conspire against our best wishes in the pursuit of “stuff,” instead of working in our best interests while pursuing sound and sustainable policies of economic growth and stability. The world’s trade representatives were unable to make any headway at their last conference in Geneva because the people back home found their concessions to be unappealing, in order to avoid this problem in the future they plan to take their dealings behind closed doors. It is possible that when the Doha Round finally reconvenes sometime in 2009 or 2010 the public will have already been sold out by self-interested politicians looking for personal gains.

Outgoing United States Trade Representative Susan Schwab sees the shift toward back room bargaining as a good development in trade negotiations. Trade ministers can get more done when they needn’t worry about the prying eyes of the public.

Why pretend to be a “democratic” world or a democratic country if you scramble into secret meetings where decisions and concessions can be made without the people’s input?

Do we as citizens not deserve a place at the table?

We vote for our President (who appoints the USTR) and we vote for our Congressmen (who approve the appointments) but politicians have shown many times that they are not always working for their constituents. The appointee is so far removed from the actual public and from the voting process that they have no real loyalty to any constituency. The proof of this is evidence, how else could one explain the ruinous trade policies that our country has pursued for the past decades? Our representatives, especially the ones who are not voted into their positions, are not working for us they are working for themselves; and the movement toward secret trade dealings is a perfect example of this frightening fact.

The WTO infringes on our country’s ability to govern itself by imposing supranational regulations on our national policy. It puts the fate of our economic security into the hands of 152 other voting members who are not only looking out for themselves, but are also looking to take their own bite out of the gigantic American economy. Through the WTO's imposed “free trade” and international economic “liberalization” we have lost the manufacturing of textiles, electronics, automobiles, and basic goods like timber products to outside producers. We have witnessed the demolition of our once lucrative import tariffs, when coupled with a destructive decrease in income taxation this nation is left spending more money than it brings in. We have seen the quality of our goods decrease – one need look no further than Chinese lead poisoning scares – while the volume of the goods has increased.

Our nation has been made uncompetitive and, as the largest economy in the world, it has the most to lose in this listless system. Instead of proliferating our own demise, we need to take a stand and put a stop to the destruction while we still can by altering our approach to the WTO – and other similar agreements – or removing ourselves from them altogether.

Source straitstimes.com:

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