Winston Marshall at Power Politics has an outstanding post on a controversy in the World Trade Organization. The United States has taken a bold stand (too bold, Marshall argues) against government subsidizing domestic industry for protectionist reasons:
This battle is perhaps the most important development in international trade politics since the formation of the WTO. Never before have the United States and Europe directly clashed over such an important sector of the economy through the WTO’s dispute settlement body, which has been built up as the ultimate arbiter of international trade policy…. The WTO will almost certainly find merit in both the lawsuit and countersuit, and declare both American and European subsidies illegal. These rulings will without a doubt be immediately ignored or bypassed…. The protectionist bloc in the US Congress will use it as a platform to denounce free trade, and the body, as a whole, will sponsor more counterproductive legislation like the Byrd amendment… [T]he greatest risk of this battle will be to the legitimacy of the WTO as a final arbiter of trade relations. Since the US and the EU will be blatantly ignoring the ruling for at least some time, the body risks losing credibility as a forum for resolving large-scale trade disagreements involving powerful vested interests.
As the man says, read all of it. These international agreements lowering trade barriers have the potential to radically improve the lives of everybody in the world, but progress has its enemies, and as Jefferson said, “[a] good cause is often injured more by ill-timed efforts of its friends than by the arguments of its enemies. Persuasion, perseverance, and patience are the best advocates on questions depending on the will of others. The revolution in public opinion which this cause requires, is not to be expected in a day, or perhaps in an age; but time, which outlives all things, will outlive this evil also.”
Comments policy