[PEN-L:362] Shell Game: IMF vote next week. (fwd)

[michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Forwarded message:
Delivered-To: michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Delivered-To: michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: Sid Shniad <shniad@xxxxxx>
Subject: Shell Game: IMF vote next week. (fwd)
To: mai-not@xxxxxx
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1998 09:02:59 -0700 (PDT)
X-UID: 988

> Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 10:19:16 -0400 (EDT)
> From: "Margrete Strand-Rangnes" <mstrand@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Shell Game: IMF vote next week.
>
> To: Activists on MAI and trade issues
> From: Friends of the Earth
> Re: IMF Funding Bill Would Impose More Liberalization Requirements on Many
> Countries
>
> Next week, the week of July 27th, the House of Representatives is expected
> to vote on the Foreign Operations Appropriations bill.  This bill contains
> billions of dollars in new IMF funding, as well as so-called "reform"
> language that dangerously expands the power of the IMF and subjects
> developing countries to onerous and harmful trade and investment rules.
>
> One of the "reforms" in the current IMF funding bill requires the US
> Government to work with the other wealthy countries that control the IMF to
> use IMF loans as a battering ram for trade and investment liberalization. If
> this goal, inserted in the bill at the behest of corporate lobbyists,
> becomes US law and IMF policy, developing countries that borrow money from
> the IMF would be required to:
> "liberalize restrictions on trade in goods and services and on investment,
> at a minimum consistent with the terms of all international  trade
> agreements of which the borrowing country is a signatory"
> The adoption of this policy in the context of the IMF would undercut some of
> the progress that citizens in the US and around the world have made recently
> in rejecting fast track negotiating authority; stalling the Multilateral
> Agreement on Investment (MAI); and raising awareness on the World Trade
> Organization.
>
> In the context of MAI negotiations many developing countries have signaled
> that they would not automatically sign an agreement negotiated by
> industrialized countries. Faced with economic difficulties and the choice of
> either refusing IMF assistance or liberalizing to suit the IMF and foreign
> investors, few governments could resist.
>
> Turning the IMF into a policeman for existing trade agreements is also
> threatening. Trade agreements like the WTO have their own enforcement rules,
> closed to public participation, that have been used to strike down
> environmental and consumer protections. But at least under the WTO we know
> when one government is challenging the laws of a another government. The IMF
> is the most secretive of international institutions, and can pressure
> governments to alter trade and investment laws without the citizens of the
> country ever knowing which laws are being discussed.
>
> Let Congress know that the IMF needs its unaccountable power reigned in; not
> a new mandate to interfere in trade and investment policy.
>
> Call or fax your member of Congress and tell him/her to VOTE NO on any new
> funding for the IMF if the bill contains this dangerous trade and investment
> liberalization requirement.  The IMF is already unaccountable to the public,
> this bill would expand its power even more.
>
> House switchboard number:  (202)-225-3121
>
> For more information on the IMF legislation contact Carol Welch-
> cwelch@xxxxxxx
>
>
> Mark Vallianatos
> Friends of the Earth
> ph: 202-783-7400 x231
> fax: 202-783-7400
>
>
> Margrete Strand Rangnes
> MAI Project Coordinator
> Public Citizen Global Trade Watch
> 215 Pennsylvania Ave, SE
> Washington DC, 20003
> mstrand@xxxxxxxxxxx
> 202-546 4996, ext. 306
> 202-547 7392 (fax)
>
> To subscribe to our MAI Listserv send an e-mail to mstrand@xxxxxxxxxxx, or
> subscribe directly by going to our website,
> www.citizen.org/pctrade/tradehome.html
>
>



--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx