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To: hedgetrimmer
I have told you once already that you are using the term "National treatment" incorrectly.

National treatment: The principle of providing foreign producers and sellers the same treatment provided to domestic firms. For example - and I believe that this was an actual source of contention of the national treatment principle - when refining gasoline for domestic uses around the U.S., many regions have their own requirement for additives and blends. What you probably did not know is that some of these blends have been formulated so that certain agricultural products (like corn) have to be used in the refining process, thereby creating more of a demand for them. When a country like Mexico can refine gasoline more cheaply (labor savings and environmental standards relaxed) and export it to the United States, and as long as they refine it so that it meets the stringent requirement of an acceptable used blend for at least one region, then the corn producers, for instance, cannot lobby congress to have the imported gasoline stopped (which would have protected the artificial demand for their corn output if successful). National treatment does not allow for a country to discriminate against goods for import purposes, however, it does not preclude the consumer from discriminating against the good. But, in situations where the good is indistinguishable from another (natural resource and goods found in pure competition markets), the consumer seldom knows the country of origin.

I hope you will not continue to use the term incorrectly now that you've been properly informed about its meaning.

36 posted on 06/03/2005 3:46:29 AM PDT by LowCountryJoe (50 states, and their various laws, will serve 'we, the people' better than just one LARGE state can)
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To: LowCountryJoe
According to the WTO, national treatment refers to services, which also means the service provider or "natural person". Note that the WTO doesn't say giving the same treatment as one's own goods, or one's own product, but one's own NATIONALS. And for your information, nationals means citizens of a particular nation, so giving others the same treatment as one's own nationals means people,not goods.

***

2. National treatment: Treating foreigners and locals equally Imported and locally-produced goods should be treated equally — at least after the foreign goods have entered the market. The same should apply to foreign and domestic services, and to foreign and local trademarks, copyrights and patents. This principle of “national treatment” (giving others the same treatment as one’s own nationals) is also found in all the three main WTO agreements (Article 3 of GATT, Article 17 of GATS and Article 3 of TRIPS), although once again the principle is handled slightly differently in each of these.

National treatment only applies once a product, service or item of intellectual property has entered the market. Therefore, charging customs duty on an import is not a violation of national treatment even if locally-produced products are not charged an equivalent tax.

http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/fact2_e.htm
46 posted on 06/03/2005 11:04:41 AM PDT by hedgetrimmer
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