Corrupt Government Giveaways Will Continue, Admits Congressman
No Congressional Support for Welfare Cuts
| Here are edited portions of a report that originated with the Reuters news agency. |
The United States Congress will not support proposals for cuts to U.S. corporate welfare giveaways as part of world trade talks, a senior U.S. agriculture legislator said on June 21 following discussions with World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy.
"I conveyed to the Director General in no uncertain terms that this is not an option," House Committee on Agriculture Chairman Bob Goodlatte said in a statement. "There is absolutely no support in the Congress for further concessions on our part."
Lamy was in Washington Monday and Tuesday to discuss with agribusiness corporations and lawmakers the global trade talks, where time is short to strike a deal and pressure is building on the U.S. to offer to further slash its trade-distorting corporate welfare handouts.
"Mr. Lamy was interested in collecting the views of various U.S. officials and I made my views quite clear," Goodlatte added. "We have yet to see strong action on the part of other WTO members, such as the EU, and we will not accept an agreement that benefits our international trading partners by putting our producers at a disadvantage."
The 149 members of the WTO are running out of time to reach a deal to reform trade-distorting tariffs and subsidies as part of attempts at a wider pact to slash all trade barriers and boost the world economy.
The United States has offered to cut its WTO allowance for its most trade-distorting agribusiness corporation subsidies by 60 percent, conditional on other countries opening up their markets. But the European Union and others say they will only present counteroffers to slash their farm import duties if the United States cuts deeper into its own welfare programs first.
This has alarmed U.S. agribusiness corporations and their lobbyists. Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Saxby Chambliss told reporters before meeting Lamy on Tuesday that U.S. lawmakers felt no pressure to get a deal under the Doha round of the current WTO talks.
"I think right now it's pretty obvious the European Union doesn't want an agreement on their side," Chambliss said.
New U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab, who met Goodlatte and Chambliss on Tuesday, said after those meetings that the trade talks could get caught in a "downward spiral where no one wins" if countries back away from a commitment to dramatically cut corporate welfare and tariffs.
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Also see: Congress Continues With Corruption and Failure -- Handouts to Large Agribusiness Corporations
Immoral and Deadly and Expensive and Corrupt
Some Courts Take Steps Against Corporate Welfare Queens |
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