[WilliamofCarmichael]

RE: "In a bid to win developing country support for services trade liberalization"

Well, yeah that too. "Cheap" migrant labor. Remittances are critical for many "developing" countries.

As I recall the WTO is moving beyond trade and could be in the "services trade" and "social justice" business soon.

That's the plan also. Fold the ILO into the WTO, I bet. We're already conditioned to bow to the WTO.

[hedgetrimmer]

China is fast developing a blue water navy. One well placed missile into the strait of Malacca, where more than 60% of containers must pass to get to the Pacific and the US, would devastate the US economy. Then a blockade and we're done for.

Even if we speculate about the Malaccan Strait, they do have a plan in place for the Strait of Taiwan:

A pro-Beijing newspaper in Hong Kong has quoted Chinese sources that the "PLA [Navy is] capable of seizing control of the entire Taiwan Strait and of burying any foreign intruder in a sea of fire."

They don't have to be in our hemisphere to be a threat, although as you know, they are working through "free trade" to insinuate themselves very deeply into our hemisphere.

[Conservative Goddess]

WTO has been an agency of redistribution since inception.

They made a fallacious distinction between a direct tax and an indirect tax that has served to disadvantage US business for more than 30 years. It's a technical point that served as the subject of my MS Tax thesis.

When you consider that the US has the highest Corporate Net Income tax rate in the OECD, and the WTO has repeatedly refused to allow us to "border adjust" the burden from exported goods, it's a frank miracle that we have any jobs left in this country.

Many erroneously identify "free trade" as the enemy. It's not....keeps us fighting amongst ourselves. The indirect/direct distinction between the tax systems of Europe and the CNI of the US...is the reason we are so disadvantaged in the world market. Here's a synopsis of the problem: http://www.iie.com/publications/opeds/oped.cfm?ResearchID=197