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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (135057)	3/28/2001 11:55:36 PM
From: Scumbria	Respond to of 1574478

Ted, W is pitting himself against most of his own country, and the rest of the world. He thinks his tax cut bribe will seduce Americans in to a numb stupidity. I don't hear any of his ardent supporters backing him anymore. Scumbria

To: tejek who wrote (135057)	3/29/2001 12:43:41 AM
From: Scumbria	Respond to of 1574478

Ted, Jimmy Carter tried to destroy Colorado with oil shale development. Looks like Bush is a Carter without Carter's better points. BTW: In other right wing developments, apparently it is OK to post threatening remarks on the Internet, as long as you don't specifically advocate directly murdering any particular individual: dailynews.yahoo.com Scumbria

To: tejek who wrote (135057)	3/29/2001 5:53:05 AM
From: stribe30	Respond to of 1574478

Canada gets more U.S. support on softwood In addition to annoying the EU, you're also annoying your largest trading partner and closest ally of all.. fortunately.. it looks like there are some voices of reason in the US.. whether they can counteract the logging interests is another matter of course. ------------------------ VANCOUVER (CP) - Voices on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border warned Wednesday that further restrictions on Canadian softwood lumber imports into the American market would hurt consumers there. In a letter to U.S. President George W. Bush, a group called the Consuming Industries Trade Action Coalition urged his administration to move to free trade in lumber after the Canada-U.S. Softwood Lumber Agreement expires on Saturday. Managed-trade deals such as the lumber agreement ''simply operate to disguise subsidies to American producers that will make new homes and other construction more expensive and hurt many more Americans than they would help,'' writes coalition chairman Jon Jenson. A coalition of U.S. lumber producers plan to file countervailing duty and anti-dumping claims against Canadian exporters, arguing low provincial stumpage rates on Crown timber give them an unfair cost advantage. Three previous attempts to impose countervailing duties on Canadian lumber failed, though Canada compromised on the last two occasions. A 1986 deal slapped on a 15 per cent export tax before the wood left Canada. The 1996 softwood lumber agreement, which expires Saturday, restricted duty-free imports of Canadian lumber. U.S. researchers estimate the five-year deal added about $1,000 (U.S.) to the cost of a new home, cutting 300,000 people out of the market. American lumber producers now want a 40 per cent duty on Canadian imports. ''This is going to put the price of lumber up in the United States dramatically,'' B.C. Forests Minister Gordon Wilson said in Victoria. ''That, of course, works to the interests of the lumber companies.'' British Columbia accounts for about half the lumber sold into the United States, where Canadian softwood has a 35 per cent share of the market. Lumber exports are worth about $10 billion (U.S.) a year to Canada. In his letter to Bush, Jenson said restrictions on Canadian lumber threaten industries dependent on open markets for lumber, including all homebuilders, furniture manufacturers and makers of shelving and other home accessories. ''These industries employ some six million workers - more Americans than are protected by the agreement,'' he writes. The expiring softwood deal suffered from ''extremely dubious legality under international trading rules,'' the letter says. ''The World Trade Organization rightly condemns such gray-area measures as alien to the principles of open markets and trade liberalization.'' Jenson said U.S. trade law is too heavily weighted in favour of producers and doesn't adequately consider the interests of consumers. The fact Canada uses a different system for allocating timber rights on public lands does not make it unfair, he added. ''Canada has a comparative advantage in lumber and consuming industries and America's families have the right to choose the best product at the best price,'' the letter says. ''Instead, today, the homebuilders and the American people are paying the price for protection.'' Despite support for Canada from consumer groups and their political allies in Congress, Wilson said producers here should prepare for a long fight over softwood. ''We will not surrender our timber to U.S. interests and neither are we going to allow the United States to selectively apply free trade,'' he said. ''We're in a battle and it's going to be a tough one. thestar.com

To: tejek who wrote (135057)	3/29/2001 5:57:08 AM
From: stribe30	Respond to of 1574478

"Lumber Battle Shows Flaws Of Free Trade" When the Canada-U.S. Softwood Lumber Agreement expires on Saturday, our lumber trade with the U.S. will finally be free — until Monday when the U.S. starts harassing us all over again. Canada signed the agreement in 1996 to avoid threatened trade sanctions by Washington, even though a dispute resolution panel set up under the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement had thrown out an American claim that Ottawa and the provinces subsidize Canadian wood. Nevertheless, the U.S. lumber industry intends to launch yet another complaint with United States Trade Representative Robert Zoellick on Monday. Despite the Americans' repeated failures to prove that Canadian wood is subsidized, they seem determined to keep making the charge. Last weekend, it was made by former president Jimmy Carter in an opinion piece in the New York Times. Saying he was a strong supporter of the free trade deal, Carter failed to mention the panel decision that had already rejected the subsidies charge; instead he simply asserted that Canadian subsidies were responsible for a crisis that "could be devastating to 10 million American landowners, 20,000 sawmill owners and more than 700,000 workers, and also the environment." Carter's solution: A permanent agreement that ensures free trade by ending "the artificial price restrictions that the Canadian government has put on timber." In other words, if Canadians want "free trade" in lumber, Carter suggests they sacrifice sovereignty and adopt U.S. practices that have led to a loss of forest acreage in the southern U.S. Former Ontario premier Bob Rae, representing the Canadian lumber industry, has advanced a better idea. He proposed that Ottawa and Washington set up a panel of eminent persons to weigh both countries' arguments and propose a permanent solution that reflects the merits of each side's case. Ottawa and Washington are exploring the feasibility of such an approach. The Americans don't want to provoke an ugly trade war just before President George W. Bush comes to Quebec city for next month's Summit of the Americas. But a panel of eminent persons will only work if both sides agree to be bound by its advice. This appears to be a sticking point for the Americans. Of more immediate concern is Washington's refusal to put U.S lumber industry complaints on hold while a panel considers the dispute. American producers are seeking duties on Canadian softwood of 40 per cent. This leaves Ottawa between a rock and a hard place. An eminent persons panel is certainly worth pursuing — if only to demonstrate the legitimacy of Canada's case. But we need a way to stop Washington from bashing our producers in the meantime. America's intransigence may leave Ottawa with no option but to air its grievance in front of all of the Latin American leaders at next month's Summit of the Americas. That would be embarrassing for Bush and detrimental to the drive for hemispheric free trade. But all of America's future trading partners deserve to know that the U.S. does not practise what it preaches when it comes to free trade. thestar.com