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worth repeating |
Joseph W. Glauber, deputy chief economist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, delivered the 20th J.W. Fanning Lecture earlier this month. Some excerpts: “A lot of the work that I’ve been doing for the past few years has been involved with trade work. This past December, just a few short weeks ago, I sat across the table from the Brazilian delegation arguing before an appellate board in this cotton case, where Brazil has challenged our cotton subsidies, and I was really struck that it was only 11 short years ago that I was in Geneva finishing up work on the Uruguay Round, and at the time we were patting ourselves on the back for completing what was generally seen as an important agreement, bringing agriculture into the GATT. And I have to say that the United States was a major leader in that effort. We were pushing very hard for reform, particularly in the area of domestic -support . . . moving agriculture away from a more regulated environment, with an emphasis on high loan rates and base acreage, and moving more and more toward flexibility. And two years after completing the Uruguay Round, of course, the United States Congress came through and we moved to a decoupled scheme. There really was a lot of chest thumping in Geneva at the time among the U.S. delegation. . . . “Well—that was it, and then it changed fairly dramatically. . . By 1998, if you look at most of the major field crops, you’re looking at a decline from the peak. . . And then, due to a number of factors . . . the United States found itself in an uncomfortable position all of a sudden, as being on the defensive. . . It was a distinct reversal of where we had been, and on top of that we have Brazil coming in and presenting a challenge not just to the cotton program but to U.S. programs in general.” |
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—Beth
Roberts |
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