Posted on 12/22/2005 8:09:53 AM PST by hedgetrimmer
WASHINGTON, DC—Steve Swanson, Chairman of the Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports, announced today that the U.S. lumber industry is challenging the constitutionality of a dispute settlement system under the North American Free Trade Agreement, commonly referred to as Chapter 19. The Chapter 19 system allows bi-national panels of individuals to make binding decisions about application of U.S. law to U.S. unfair trade findings contrary to due process and other constitutional requirements.
“The Constitution does not permit these panels to be the final arbiter of whether U.S. law provides for relief from unfair subsidies and dumping for U.S. producers and workers,” said Swanson. “The challenge is against the Chapter 19 dispute mechanism, not the NAFTA as a whole.”
United States courts ordinarily decide appeals of findings that imports are subsidized or dumped. NAFTA Chapter 19 made findings regarding Canadian and Mexican imports appealable only to panels of individuals, some of whom are not U.S. citizens and none of whom is accountable within the U.S. government. Nothing like Chapter 19 has been included in other trade agreements, including DR-CAFTA.
When the Congress first considered Chapter 19 in 1988, the U.S. Justice Department warned that the Chapter 19 system would be unconstitutional. The U.S. government has repeatedly found that Canadian lumber imports are subsidized and dumped and threaten injury to the U.S. lumber industry. The World Trade Organization has approved these findings, and countervailing (anti-subsidy) and antidumping duties have been imposed on Canadian lumber imports since 2002. But a NAFTA dispute panel has exceeded its authority by directing the U.S. International Trade Commission to reverse a finding that unfair imports threaten the U.S. lumber industry. The U.S. government requested that one panelist be removed because of a conflict of interest, but he stayed on the panel.
“As NAFTA panels threaten to subvert application of the trade laws to unfair lumber imports, we must enforce our constitutional right to due process and accountable decision-making,” explained Swanson. “If Canadian lumber subsidies and dumping are not fully addressed, the unfair imports will result in scores of sawmill closures, cause thousands of job losses, and undermine millions of family timberland owners.” Swanson concluded, “All that the U.S. industry has ever requested is an end to Canadian lumber subsidies and dumping through open and competitive timber and log markets. The U.S. industry vigorously supports the U.S. government’s pursuit of free trade principles and a negotiated settlement based on reasonable Canadian commitments to timber policy reform. Until then, we will defend our rights to relief under U.S. law.”
The Coalition’s filing of this case comports with statutory requirements that it be initiated within 30 days of the end of a Chapter 19 proceeding.
Do you happen to know how it passed in the senate? It doesn't matter if the house approved it or not. And for a treaty to be ratified, it has to pass a 2/3 vote in the senate.
Mark
The key is that once a treaty is ratified by a 2/3s vote in the senate, and the president signs it, it becomes "law," and the US government is obligated to obey it. While any law or treaty passed cannot superceed the Constitution, a treaty can superceed federal, state, and local laws.
Mark
Congressional-Executive Agreements (US law)
Agreements with a foreign power that have been approved by the US Congress. Unlike a treaty (in the US constitutional sense), it does not supersede existing law and does not require a two-thirds vote by the Senate. Instead, it is enacted as an ordinary law which requires majority votes by both the House and Senate followed by approval from the President. (In contrast, a sole executive agreement is ratified by the President alone.)
Not even treaties supercede existing law.
The Panama Canal Treaty included a number of protections for US citizens that Carter included to dupe America into ratifying it. Right after ratification the US government proceeded to renege on on its promises saying that treaties are just contracts between nations, and it's laws that govern people regardless of what treaties say. Panama Canal Employees took it all the way to the Supreme Court and lost.
And we even have "treaty enforcers". That is one of the duties of the US Coast Guard, as part of the department of Homeland Security.
In other words, the U.S. Constitution is not about what hedgetrimmer feels on any particular day.
Merry Christmas.
Likewise. Watch out for stampeding brats.
Ping
Unlike you, I differentiate properly between having authority and the concepts of invoking it vs. invoking it properly. Those are fine points you seem to have no understanding of. Go back to school.
Did you learn that while you were getting your math degree?
But aren't home-buyers American? And aren't there more American home-buyers than Americans in the lumber industry? How does keeping out low-cost lumber constitute looking out for Americans first?
You don't happen to be from Sidney MT do you?- the Hwy with the weight restrictions eliminated to circumvent the railways for MT wheat and equalize Canadian weights with MT weights? - It made MT wheat farmers competitive with Canadian wheat farmers.
If you are from MT, you know perfectly well that this is not about lowering the cost of lumber for Americans, its about FORCING America to raise taxes in order to subsidize their own lumber industry or kill off the US lumber industry.
The US lumber industry does NOT need subsidies and has in fact invested millions upon millions if not billions in new sawmill technology to be competitive on the world market- unlike Canada. There the industry just asks the taxpayers to fork over more to make up the gap of their lack of competitiveness.
US producers produce some of the lowest cost products in real dollars, but the Canadians are Socialists- they throw money into their timber "stumpage" subsidies with reckless abandonment just to keep their people employed vs. their people and mills competitive.
Would you have US taxpayers pay more in taxes to provide you with a lower cost 2x4 rather than ask the Canadians to actually FORCE their mills to be globally competitive and have price be driven by efficiency and market demand?
Canadian lumber can indeed "cost less" for US consumers at the moment, but if you wipe out the more efficient US manufactures, you'll have nothing left but foreign manufacturers. At that point, foreigners have no incentive to subsidize their mills, and you just got yourself a $10 2x4 instead of a $2.50 2x4, and you'll have no one to thank but yourself.
That IS the long term reality of this particular issue FWIW.
Wiping out US mills is akin to asking Iran if they'll consider lowering the price of oil when they've got it all and you have not one drop.
Free trade should mean fair trade, and Canada is not accomplishing fair trade when it rapes its taxpayers to keep uncompetitive mills open when THEY should be the ones closing.
Socialism rewards inefficiency and rewards non-competitiveness.
For a time you may get a cheaper 2x4, but when Socialism wins, you get the most expensive widget money can buy with the worst quality you can imagine at the greatest cost to the consumer- Just ask the Swedish, the Finish, and hell- go ahead and ask the French- their farmers are better at protesting than they are at growing food and you can take that to the bank- They do- while the consumer pays higher prices.
By the way, US farm subsidies have US taxpayers paying US farmers to keep their fields idle under the CRP's. that's great for the US farmer wintering in the Caribbean, but it has bred exactly what you suggest should continue- you pay for that loaf of bread at the grocery store, or you pay for it through your taxes.
If Americans knew how, frankly said, corrupt and unnecessary farm subsidies are in the US, a whole boatload of people in and around Sidney MT would be out of a vacation for agreeing not to plant wheat.
Now either they are going to be farmers or they are going to be leeches off the rest of us. That IS the question now facing Canada- Is their timber industry going to leech off their taxpayers and hurt honest, competitive US companies, or are they going to be required to get 'er done?
Lots of those around here. Not.
Hedgetrimmer,
I do despise the WTO precisely because they are inclined towards preserving the outdated and more publicly harmful socialist policies rather than enforcing what should be "free and fair trade."
U.S. farmers are receiving corporate welfare to not farm- let's call a spade a spade- and that costs the taxpayers billions every year. Obviously, there is a public policy issue here: Do we want to at least preserve their property and equipment so that in the event they are needed in the future, they will be able to provide the food the country needs, as well as the issue that by keeping these farmers around without them having to actually work, will continue to keep food prices low at the grocery store.
With free and fair trade, the CRP's (farm subsidies) will have to increase just to put more fields to idle. In short, the world market in food is beginning to work its slow but methodical kill on farm subsidies. Continuing on this path, the data shows clearly, that the U.S. taxpayer may be able to buy a loaf of bread for $3.00 at the market, but they'll be paying $1.00 a day in more taxes to be provided that $3.00 loaf of bread.
If it were up to me, I'd eliminate all taxes any farmer pays on anything to accomplish the same thing, but politically, the farmers will riot in the fields, calling such a thing "unfair". Hey, with no taxes they;d actually have to work- unreal how screwed up things actually are.
As it was said 200 years ago, I'll paraphrase it here: "Once certain classes find out how to rape the treasury- democracy is over."
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