Thursday, November 17, 2005

American free trade hypocrisy: Part 4,713.


First, this can't come as any surprise:

A NAFTA panel has given the United States until next Wednesday to drastically cut duties on Canadian softwood lumber, rejecting a request from American officials for another delay.

The order Wednesday was the latest in a string of decisions favouring Canada under the North American Free Trade Agreement in a bitter battle that's been going on for years.

No, here's the delightful part of that same article:

"The fundamental fact that Canada's lumber industry receives billions of dollars in annual subsidies derived from Canadian taxpayer-owned forest resources has not changed and is at the core of this trade dispute," said Steve Swanson, head of the U.S. Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports.

"NAFTA panels must not be allowed to trump U.S. law."


Um, dude ... NAFTA was explicitly designed to do just that -- trump U.S. law and infringe on national sovereighty. You might want to read Chapter 11 before sounding like even more of a moron.

And this idiot is the head of something. Jesus.

1 comment:

orc said...

The $45,000 question is whether the Canadian Government will start making noises about dropping NAFTA on the floor if they can't get the USA to actually obey the stupid agreement.

The US government thinks we're Wal*Mart and can break our contracts with everyone without consequence; shredding the contract and slapping tariffs on stuff the US needs from Canada might be enough to get Washington's attention.