[PEN-L:398] Shell Game: IMF vote next week. (fwd)

[michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

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>From owner-sid-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Fri Jul 31 02:45:19 1998
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Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1998 18:01:57 -0700
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From: Sid Shniad <shniad@xxxxxx>
Subject: Shell Game: IMF vote next week.
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>Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 10:19:16 -0400 (EDT)
>From: "Margrete Strand-Rangnes" <mstrand@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>To: Multiple recipients of list MAI-NOT <mai-not@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>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)




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

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