Bribery and coercion in the WTO
USimperialism and the European Union have effectively overcome the tenuous opposition to their dictates in the World Trade Organization (WTO) by resorting to bribery and arm-twisting. On July 31, the WTO General Council signed an agreement touted as being instrumental in effecting the resumption of the disrupted trade negotiations.
It may be recalled that negotiations in the WTO collapsed in September 2003 in Cancun, Mexico when the US and EU insisted on further liberalizing agriculture and extending the WTO's scope. Cancun gave rise to the Group of 20 or G20, an alliance of large and small countries and neocolonies that depend principally on agricultural production. The US and the EU blamed the G20 for the talks' collapse, when in fact it was the US and EU's ministers who suspended the negotiations when it became clear that the G20 would not budge from its position in the talks.
The key to the formulation of the latest agreement was Brazil and India's consent to its onerous provisions. Their acquiescence of these countries, considered the leaders of the G20, has been crucial in convincing the majority, composed of smaller countries.
The US and the EU invited Brazil and India to join exclusive talks to frame the agreement. Together with Australia, they formed the "five interested parties," or FIPS which would set the direction of the trade talks until the next WTO meeting in 2005.
G20's impending collapse
The latest agreement's only achievement is the impending dissolution of the G20's unity in the face of relentless maneuvers by the US and EU. Brazil and India's inclusion in the agreement is but the latest tactic employed by the imperialist countries. Long before this, the imperialists were already going all-out in their schemes to coerce other countries to leave the formation.
After Cancun, the US threatened the countries of Latin America that it would revoke their small trade privileges if they refused to dissociate themselves from the G20. As a result, Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru, Costa Rica and Colombia have bolted the formation. The US has also been using the aid it extends to desperate countries as a leverage to gain allies. It has even threatened to refuse credit and disallow the rescheduling of debt payments if G20 member-countries continued to defy the US' wishes.
A win for the US and EU
The content of the latest agreement is no different from the US and EU's agenda in Cancun both on the issue of the further liberalization of agriculture and the expansion of the WTO's scope. The negotiations centered on achieving a minimum 80% reduction on agricultural tariffs and subsidies. The US and the EU have been pushing for this since 1999, when the implementation of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was about to be completed. In the two instances that the US and the EU tried to force agreement (first in Seattle and again in Cancun), negotiations collapsed because of the people's strong and widespread opposition.
There is likewise nothing new in the the US and EU's refusal to reduce subsidies on their own agricultural products. The new agreement provides that countries may declare certain products as "sensitive" to exempt them from the reduction requirement. The US immediately declared its own sugar products sensitive and refused to reduce high tariffs on imported sugar. The EU and Australia also refused to reduce tariffs on their respective countries' wheat, dairy and other agricultural imports.
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