Free trade or fair trade ... and for whom?

[9-11-03]

As the next round of global trade talks proceeds in Cancun, Mexico, we offer links to a number of sites that may help you follow what's going on, seen from various perspectives. If you have other resources to suggest, or comments of your own, please send a note!

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The Mexico Solidarity Network, in its Weekly News and Analysis for September 1-7, 2003, offered a good introduction to some of the major issues.

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Utne Tradewatch covers the WTO Ministerial in Cancún

Utne Online reporters are on the ground in Cancún during the World Trade Organization Ministerial, September 10-14. Stay abreast of news inside and outside the high-level trade meetings by checking their daily dispatches and weblog posts from Leif Utne, Ben Lilliston, and author/activist Starhawk.

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Will 'free trade' serve humankind or will we serve it?

The TomPaine website offers lots of good analysis of the Cancun meeting and the broader issues of "free trade" and globalization

One brief example is the "op ad" the group placed in the New York Times on Sept. 10. It asks the question for the WTO ministers: "Will 'Free Trade' Serve Humankind Or Will We Serve It?"

Scroll down that page and you'll find links to other good articles.

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'Fair trade' on display

Justice-in-commerce group courts World Trade Organization

Presbyterian News Service reports on a gathering in Cancun of "fair trade" merchants from more than 100 countries, to spotlight fledgling fair-trade markets around the globe and show their benefits to officials of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

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Food First is offering daily reports from the WTO meeting

They are focusing on the actions and meetings of "the fisherfolk, the campesinas, the indigenous, the trade unions, the environmentalists, and the social and economic justice activists."

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WTO FAILURE LIKELY, THOUSANDS GATHER TO PROTEST
[9-11-03]

The World Trade Organization Ministerial next week in Cancun, Mexico, is unlikely to result in any major new accords. As trade ministers from 146 countries gather amidst heavy security, disagreements on agricultural subsidies, tariffs, investment rules and intellectual property rights led a parade of important issues that mark clear divisions between Northern and Southern nations.

Southern countries are calling for an end to agricultural subsidies by the US and Europe, particularly for basic grains. Current government subsidies allow corporate producers to sell basic grains on the world market below the cost of production, threatening the survival of millions of small and medium-sized producers in the global South.

Northern nations are pushing hard for further reductions in tariffs on industrial products and liberalized rules on foreign investment, allowing transnational corporations more access to developing markets. But Southern countries fear destruction of national industry as cheap imports flood local markets and international investors drive out local producers. They also complain of selective tariff reductions that open Southern markets while protecting certain Northern markets.

Intellectual property rights, particularly the use of generic drugs, took center stage in pre-ministerial negotiations, as Northern and Southern countries disagreed, then agreed, then disagreed on key issues. Southern nations are calling for relaxed regulations on use of generic drugs, particularly for health crises such as AIDS, but pharmaceutical companies are balking. Negotiators identify three types of countries: industrialized countries (the principle market of drug companies), developing countries that have the capacity to produce generic medicine, and poorer nations that don't have production capacity. Early this week there was an apparent agreement that quickly fell apart when the poorest nations realized that the red tape involved in approval for each license for generic medicines would effectively bar their access.

Another contentious issue is the possible addition of four new areas to the current round of negotiations - bidding on government contracts, simplifying import and export rules, coordinating antitrust regulations, and setting rules on foreign investment. Southern countries are staunchly opposed, while Northern countries are pushing for an expanded agenda.

Meanwhile, thousands of protestors from around the world are gathering in Cancun. Dozens of forums and workshops promoting alternatives to the corporate-centered globalization model promoted by the WTO are scheduled from September 7-14. Over the past month, Mexican officials mounted a powerful propaganda campaign in an effort to diminish participation in mobilizations that are expected to reach tens of thousands. Local officials closed public schools and warned residents to stay inside for the week. On Sunday Cancun was an occupied city, with Federal Preventative Police (the rough equivalent of the FBI), local police and the army manning checkpoints and roadblocks throughout the area. Demonstrators are promising peaceful protests, but authorities appear bent on provoking violence, if for no other reason than to justify the propaganda campaign and the expenditure of millions of dollars on security. Immigration officials denied visas to at least 38 representatives of civil society, including Evo Morales, former presidential candidate from Bolivia.

[4-2-03]

A news release from Public Citizen and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

Washington, DC, March 31, 2003 -- Public Citizen and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy made available to the public today the U.S. Trade Representative's (USTR) summary of demands, part of World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations, that affect U.S. state law.

The compilation lists the requests made to the U.S. from WTO member countries as part of negotiations occurring under the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The document was sent to a single "State Point-of-Contact" in each country last month. The list reveals the stunning scope of domestic policies and regulations that are poised to be traded away in the closed-door negotiations.

"With the public, press and elected officials all focused on the war, the Bush Administration is poised to effect a silent, slow-motion coup d'etat on democratic governance in the United States," said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. "These so-called trade negotiations could rewrite wide swaths of local law without state legislatures' vote or the knowledge of state attorneys general."

"We're very concerned about how little consultation the USTR has had with state officials considering the number of requests by other countries to eliminate or modify state laws or rules," said the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy's Director of Research Steve Suppan. "We are particularly concerned about a series of requests whose combined effect will be to allow foreign corporations to set up factory farms in our states and benefit from U.S. taxpayer subsidies to the detriment of family farms already damaged by U.S. trade policy."

The documents can be viewed at www.tradeobservatory.org

NOTE: This will take you to the home page of the "Trade Observatory" site maintained by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. Scroll down the page just a bit (at least for now), and you'll find a headline, "Giving it all Away? Read WTO GATS Requests From Other Countries To U.S."