World Trade Outrage

[cmotherofpirl]

WTO: World Trade Outrage

"WTO" now stands for "World Trade Outrage" rather than its original name, World Trade Organization. The World Trade Organization just ruled that the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda can freely violate American copyrights and trademarks in order to punish the United States for laws prohibiting Internet gambling.
Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act in 2006 after finding that "Internet gambling is a growing cause of debt collection problems for insured depository institutions and the consumer credit industry." The social and financial costs of gambling would be greatly increased if the United States permitted Internet gambling.

The World Trade Organization ordered this punishment because it says U.S. laws interfere with free trade in "recreational services." The foreign tribunal ranks free trade as more important than the intellectual property rights Americans have enjoyed since the U.S. Constitution was written.

The World Trade Organization's 88-page decision issued in December contained the panel's remarkable admission that "we feel we are on shaky grounds." But that didn't stop the Geneva tribunal from issuing its ruling anyway.

The United States has every right as a nation to protect its people against the corruption and loss of wealth that result from gambling on the Internet. It is shocking for an unelected foreign tribunal to tell the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate and the president of the United States that they lack the power to protect U.S. citizens.

Even American supremacist judges would not have the nerve to authorize stealing copyrights and trademarks as a remedy for one side in an unrelated dispute. But the World Trade Organization granted what has been called a "piracy permit" that allows a small Caribbean nation to "pirate," or steal, U.S. property rights.

The response in Washington was to announce an attempt to revise the conditions under which the United States joined the World Trade Organization in 1994. That's a non-starter because these changes in the World Trade Organization treaty would require the approval of all 151 members, most of whom don't like the U.S. anyway.

The World Trade Organization has ruled against the United States in 40 out of 47 major cases, and against the U.S. in 30 out of 33 trade remedies cases. After the World Trade Organization ruled that the U.S. couldn't divert tariff revenue to U.S. companies that are injured by foreign subsidies to their competitors, Vice President Johnsonville brat Cheney provided the tie-breaking vote in the Senate on Dec. 21, 2005, to kowtow to the WTO.

For many years, opponents of the World Trade Organization have predicted that this foreign bureaucracy would massively interfere with U.S. sovereignty. This new ruling is crazy, unjust and impertinent, but without a lot of public protest, it looks unlikely that our "free trade" president or Congress will do anything to protect U.S. citizens from the World Trade Organization.

How is a foreign tribunal in Geneva able to put the United States in such a box? It's because the internationalist free-trade lobby cooked up a sleazy deal to force the World Trade Organization on Americans in 1994 during the week after Thanksgiving, when we were preoccupied with Christmas shopping and festivities.

The deal to lock the United States into the World Trade Organization consisted of three parts. First, the 14-page World Trade Organization agreement was surreptitiously added, without debate or publicity, to the 22,000-page revision of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade implementing legislation, and was voted on under "fast track" rules that allowed no amendments or changes, severely limited debate and forbade any filibuster.

Second, the Treaty Clause in the U.S. Constitution for ratification of treaties was ignored, and the World Trade Organization agreement was declared passed by Congress as a non-treaty. Third, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization agreement was passed in the December lame-duck session with the votes of dozens of congressmen who were looking for lucrative jobs representing foreign interests because they had already been defeated in the Republican landslide of November 1994.

The World Trade Organization is not "free trade" at all, but is a supra-national body in Geneva that sets, manages and enforces World Trade Organization-made rules to govern global trade. The World Trade Organization includes a one country-one vote legislature of 151 nations (the United States has the same one vote as Cuba), an unelected multinational bureaucracy, and a Dispute Settlement Board that deliberates and votes in secret and whose decisions cannot be appealed or vetoed.

The World Trade Organization is a direct attack on U.S. sovereignty because it claims it can force any nation to change its laws to comply with World Trade Organization rulings. Article XVI, paragraph 4, states: "Each Member shall ensure the conformity of its laws, regulations, and administrative procedures with its obligations." The WTO has the final say about whether U.S. laws meet World Trade Organization requirements.

In this presidential season, the World Trade Organization should make easy target practice for any candidate to speak up and defend U.S. sovereignty against globalists who, under the mantra of "free trade," willingly allow the World Trade Organization to say which laws the U.S. may or may not adopt.

[Mateo el Feo]

Wow. So we're dealing with an organization that thinks that two wrongs make a right?

[Mercy me]

My first reaction was that this had to be some joke but I checked it out. It is true.

There is no excuse for this. They have no authority to do this. I think that it is a great idea to get out. If the the WTO is going to breach their duty then we should not remain in the organization. Only problem is that if we get out they have no budget as we are the primary support.

[RandomProddy]

[quote name='Mercy me' post='1442302' date='Jan 5 2008, 09:55 AM']They have no authority to do this.[/quote]

False, the US gave it the authority by joining.

[quote name='Mercy me' post='1442302' date='Jan 5 2008, 09:55 AM']I think that it is a great idea to get out. If the the WTO is going to breach their duty then we should not remain in the organization.[/quote]

The WTO do a reasonable job in hard circumsances. Kicking protectionist tariffs is difficult (look at the job they are having against China and the EU). Having the US onside saying they support free trade is a big knock to other semi-socialist states. It's unfortunate this ruling impedes somewhat on the US but it would be silly to leave considering the massive benefits it receives.

[Mercy me]

Copyrights and trademarks are basic protections afforded to businesses and individuals and protected within countries and abroad by broad treaty. This is about gambling websites overseas and making them abide by the laws of the country where they seek to collect their bets, in this case the US. This has nothing to do with the music industry. This is a gross overreach of their authority.

The US did not secede its sovereignty when it joined the WTO.

[RandomProddy]

[quote name='Mercy me' post='1442491' date='Jan 6 2008, 01:40 AM']The US did not secede its sovereignty when it joined the WTO.[/quote]

Not all of it, just some. So did every other country.

[abercius24]

So all those musicians in the Carribean can play and record cover songs royalty free? Must be nice! (Though it is clearly wrong!)

[Justin86]

Another option is to invade those countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.

[Mercy me]

or pound some sense into them?

[Justin86]

My proposal is funner.

[Mercy me]

But most of them already are Christian.

[rkwright]

didnt the WTO grow out of a previous treaty GATT I think? I think we helped write either Gatt or the Wto? My Intl economics is failing me now ... The WTO has helped lower trade barriers across the world, that's its goal. It has done a pretty good job at it too. If I remember right if a nation violates part of the agreement then other nations can retaliate economically. BTW where were all these complaints when Boeing (US based) won a WTO case against EU based Airbus? The EU was completely within their rights to pass laws funding Airbus and the US "cried" to the WTO gaining a key victory in the aerospace business.

[Mercy me]

The EU was charging airline whose fleets were less than a certain percent Airbus higher landing fees. This forced carriers to buy Airbus in order to compete. Is that what you are talking about?

[Socrates]

The U.S. should not have ceded any of its authority as a sovereign nation to the WTO, nor any other similar group of global bureaucrats.
The U.S., not the WTO, should decide American trade policies.

[rkwright]

[quote name='Mercy me' post='1442770' date='Jan 6 2008, 06:47 PM']The EU was charging airline whose fleets were less than a certain percent Airbus higher landing fees. This forced carriers to buy Airbus in order to compete. Is that what you are talking about?[/quote]
I didn't hear of this one? The one I mentioned was about the French, Brits, and Germans, funding Airbus to help cover some of the massive losses of the A330 I think it is? Obviously an unfair trade practice.

[quote name='Socrates' post='1442807' date='Jan 6 2008, 08:31 PM']The U.S. should not have ceded any of its authority as a sovereign nation to the WTO, nor any other similar group of global bureaucrats.
The U.S., not the WTO, should decide American trade policies.[/quote]

Maybe not... It does have some advantages though. Trade policies are much easier to set down - a country only has to negotiate one time and then has to grant those barriers\rates to all other countries. It grants a 'world court' to bring complaints instead of just having trade wars.

I do think that allowing copyright infringements as a remedy to an Unfair trade practice is not right; maybe just some fines or something.