As
a member of GATT since January 1948, the United States has shown a long
standing commitment to the principles of free trade. We support many elements of the resolutions being
presented today, as they are in line with the concepts of free trade and
competition that the United States firmly endorses. We do wish to raise some concerns about the
resolutions with which we are presented today.
While we hope to see the WTO further its free trade policies, we are
aware that there various interest groups represented here that will react
adversely to moving to enact all of these resolutions. We hope to enact the following changes:
We
first move to merge Resolutions II and III, simply referring to the combination
as Resolution II, as Resolution III is simply an explanation or elaboration of
the details of Resolution II. We would
like to propose that the purpose of Resolution II should not be to outlaw all
non-tariff barriers in the agriculture, automobile, and finance industries, but
to reduce them. While NTBs are clearly
barriers to free trade, their purposes are not always purely economic and they
cannot always be corrected by free market mechanisms. As seen in the example
mentioned in Resolution III, regarding restrictions on genetically modified
organisms in food, the existence of the NTB is not to restrict economic
activity, but is instead a distinction made for relevant health concerns. In the United States, we rely on government
organizations, in this case the FDA, to use their specialized knowledge to make
certain regulations. While situations
like these may have economic impacts, in some cases, there is no way we can
sacrifice the regulation in question, thus making these types of NTBs a necessary
evil. We propose that this resolution
seeks to reduce non-tariff barriers, but makes exception to regulations that
may have human health or related concerns that cannot be overlooked.
We
also move to alter Resolution IV, specifically in regards to agricultural
subsidies. Due to the nature and
importance of the agriculture industry, we believe that subsidies in this field
are necessary to maintain high levels of production. Without the protection of subsidies and
federal crop insurance, far less farmers would be willing to take the requisite
risk to continue working in agriculture.
By protecting vulnerable farmers from crop failure other industry
specific risks, we can help preserve a sector of the economy that has been in
major decline. While the U.S. itself has
been seeking new ways to cut federal spending on agricultural subsidies, we
hope to amend Resolution IV in a way that preserves these types of industry
safeguards while taking a more gradual approach to reducing subsidies.
Finally, while the United States supports the liberalization of capital flows, we move to edit or remove Resolution V, which states that no member state can
place restrictions on capital investment flows into or out of their country. While resolutions made by the WTO are aimed
at cultivating free trade around the world, we have seen many instances where
irresponsible actions by member states have warranted economic sanctions to be placed
on them by other countries. We believe
that restricting capital flows to a certain state as a means of political disapproval
can be particularly effective, and we move to create a resolution that reserves
the right of member states to implement these sorts of restrictions at their
own discretion.
We
offer a willingness to negotiate and discuss all resolutions that we have not mentioned in this
statement. We look forward to working
with the other representatives present today to create an effective agreement
that furthers the WTO’s goals of promoting free trade worldwide.
