Quote:
Originally posted by Spanky You also said that Bush wasn't pushing on the Doha round and he was to blame. You sliced up the quote from the Economist to try and and make it look like the economist was saying Bush was at fault for the collapse of the Doha round Actually, if you read the whole quote it is clear the Economist is not blaming Bush. The article also give Bush kudos for being a strong free trader.
"The collapse will probably be blamed on America, which has been pushing for bold action on agricultural tariffs, and resisting a modest compromise deal that includes caps on its own agricultural subsidies. This is ironic, because America has been one of the grave men pushing hard to revive Doha after the round’s first collapse at Cancún in 2003. Despite high-profile deviations, such as slapping tariffs on imported steel, Mr Bush has largely been a committed free trader."
And what was Bush's alleged crime Trying to make the Doha round actually cut more subsidies. Making the deal more beneficial for free trade. And you say Bush isn't committed to free trade? Please.
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You have accused me of two different things.
First, you said that I "spliced" a quote. That is flatly wrong, and I'm waiting for you to admit it. I quoted one sentence from the Economist, verbatim. I didn't splice anything. Show some class and admit you were wrong.
Second, you are suggesting that the Economist is not blaming Bush, and that it gives him credit for being a free trader. To this, I'll say three things:
(a) You are flatly misreading the article and misunderstanding reality if you think that Bush was "trying to make the Doha round cut more [agricultural] subsidies." That Economist article says the opposite. The U.S. wanted to cut agricultural
tariffs but was unwilling to cut agricultural
subsidies. If you are not understanding this, read it again. Or, to take just one example from many on the web,
this:
- This round collapsed, as many before it did, in a deadlock between farm import tariff users and farm subsidy users. Washington continued to argue for steep cuts in farm import tariffs, which are used by the European Union, India, and Japan, while refusing further cuts in its agricultural subsidies. Four of the six negotiating parties blamed U.S. intransigence as the downfall of this last round of talks. Brazil, usually aligned with the United States on farm tariffs, began earlier this year to shift its position away from that of the United States and toward the European Union, after Brussels was held to blame for the lack of progress at the December ministerial meeting in Hong Kong. Only Australia neglected to single out the United States for the failure.
(b) Notwithstanding (a), you are correct that the Economist gives Bush credit for being a free trader. It points to the "irony" that people blame the U.S. for the recent collapse, since the U.S. pushed to get the talks back on track after the Cancun failure.
This does not contradict the point I made with the Economist article, which is that the U.S. was not somehow blameless for the Doha collapse, as you suggested. My failure to agree with every point in the Economist article does not mean that I misrepresented it when I accurately quoted it in part.
(c) Moreover, I would suggest that (a) and (b) are absolutely consistent with my criticism of Bush on free trade, which is that he pays it lip service but has not invested political capital in it. Bush paid no political price whatsoever for pushing foreign countries to return to the table after Cancun, which is what the Economist praised him for. But he was not prepared to make the case domestically to limit agricultural subsidies -- for which he would have paid a price politically -- and so the Doha talks failed. When it cost him nothing to be for free trade, he was for it. When he would have had to invest something, he wouldn't ante up.
