Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Keeping focus after the WTO

[Doug Henwood <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx>]

Michael Perelman wrote:

> I think that Barkley is getting a bit emotional about free-trade.  I
> hope that Doug does not rise to his pom-pom flame bait, which was out of
> line.
>
> He's absolutely right that the U.S. has been wrong in the anti-dumping
> students.  Many of the critics of the WTO undoubtedly are acting out of
> self interest.

If I may quote my own report from Seattle
<http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/SeattleSaturday.html>:

> Another point of contention was Japanese resentment of U.S.
> anti-dumping policies - the right Washington reserves for itself to
> retaliate against countries it deems to be pricing their exports
> unfairly low. Clinton phoned Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi on
> Friday, urging him to drop the complaint, but with no apparent
> success. The issue makes it clear that despite lip service paid to a
> rules-based multilateral system, the U.S. typically feels free to do
> whatever it wants in practice.

And this point by Dani Rodrik in the Nation forum I put together
<http://www.thenation.com/issue/991206/1206forum.shtml>:

> [Q] The debate is frequently cast as being between "free-traders"
> and "protectionists." Is that a helpful way of framing things?
> Rodrik: I think it's very misleading. Some of the most ardent
> supporters of free trade are no less mercantilist than the most
> ardent promoters of protection. In both instances, we're really
> seeing the pursuit of self-interest. Some financial-services firms
> in the United States press for opening the financial-services
> markets abroad. That's driven by the same mercantilist concerns as
> those of segments of industry that try to stop imports. So, what
> might appear contradictory--promoters of free trade like
> financial-services firms versus protectionists like the steel
> industry--is really very much the same thing, the pursuit of
> self-interest.


Doug