U.S. Releases Trade Barriers Review

Yahoo! News ^ | 4/2/03 | Martin Crutsinger - AP

[NormsRevenge]

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration released its annual review of the trade barriers U.S. exporters face in trying to sell their products around the world, singling out 56 trading partners for erecting unfair barriers to American products.

"Bringing down barriers to trade promotes growth and prosperity," U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said Tuesday in releasing the 2003 edition of the National Trade Estimate Report.

"The Bush administration is committed to identifying unfair barriers to U.S. exports and to working aggressively with our trading partners to eliminate those barriers," Zoellick said.

The annual report is used by the administration to identify priority targets for negotiations to remove barriers. If those efforts fail, the United States has the option to bring cases against the offending countries before the World Trade Organization (news - web sites).

Among the practices highlighted in the report was the 15-nation European Union (news - web sites)'s ban on genetically modified food products. The report said that American corn exports to the EU have declined by 55 percent since the EU imposed the ban in 1998.

Zoellick earlier this year said that he hoped the administration would soon bring a WTO case against the ban, which the United States believes violates WTO rules against arbitrary food bans not supported by scientific evidence that the products pose any health threats.

The report also contended that U.S. poultry exports to Russia, the major overseas market for U.S. poultry, have fallen by nearly 45 percent since Russia imposed new import restrictions.

The administration said that China is unfairly restricting U.S. imports of wheat, corn, rice, cotton, barley, oilseed and vegetable oils in violation of the commitments it made in joining the WTO.

Other countries singled out included Mexico, for antidumping duties it imposed on American beef, rice and pork; Australian restrictions on imports of U.S. pork, poultry and fruit; Japanese import restrictions on American apples, rice, wheat, lettuce and rice, and Venezuelan barriers to imports of American fruits, cereals, oilseed products, meat and dairy products.

Outside of farm products, the report said that a number of countries in Asia, Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America were failing to halt high levels of piracy of U.S. movies, music and computer software.

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On the Net:

USTR site for trade barriers report: http://www.ustr.gov/reports/nte/2003/index.htm

[WRhine]

This is just more of the same kind of results we become accustomed to for decades now as WE practice "free trade" as the Rest Of The World practices "protectionism". I really can't blame our so-called trading partners for our massive trade deficits given that we have been more than willing to play the role of a World Class Sucker on trade when most other nations act in their own self-interest. We are reaping what we have sown, or perhaps, in this case, not sown. The way to unlock overseas markets is to play TOUGH on trade. You don't buy from us; we don't buy from you. We have the largest market by far, so there is no excuse why we can’t use this leverage to get better trade deals for OUR companies.