From the Radio Free Michigan archives ftp://141.209.3.26/pub/patriot If you have any other files you'd like to contribute, e-mail them to bj496@Cleveland.Freenet.Edu. ------------------------------------------------ HELMS WEIGHS IN AGAINST WTO +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ But Dole and Gingrich Back It Sen. Jesse Helms (R.-N.C.), the incoming chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, has joined in with those Republicans who have decided to make Bill Clinton's life less comfortable. Barely had the election outcome been announced when Helms, according to informed sources, said he was going to bury the President's choice for ambassador to Panama, Robert Pastor, the architect of Jimmy Carter's disastrous Latin American policy (see Human Events, June 24, page 3). Then Helms, in a press conference in Raleigh, N.C., announced that under his leadership, the committee was intensely interested in reviewing the following issues: * The "so-called" foreign aid program that has "spent an estimated $2 trillion of the American taxpayers' money, much of it going down foreign ratholes, to countries that constantly oppose us in the United Nations, and many which reject concepts of freedom." * Evaluation of why the Foreign Service "should operate under different personnel rules from all other of our government's civilian personnel." * Reevaluation of U.S. relations with "that long-time nemesis of millions of Americans, the United Nations...which costs the American taxpayers billions of dollars." * The administration's effort to regain the Golan Heights for Syria. "Syria doesn't want peace with Israel," said Helms. "What Syria wants is the Golan Heights, plus, of course, access to the American taxpayers' money. Congress needs to get off the dime and demand a reassessment of the entire Middle East peace process so that we can know, in advance, what our commitments are likely to be." REPUDIATED CONGRESS SHOULDN'T VOTE Even more alarming for President Clinton, moreover, was the forceful November 14 letter the North Carolinian sent the President in connection with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The controversial GATT implementation bill (S 2467), wrote Helms, "is scheduled to be raced through a lame-duck session of the U.S. Senate on a very unwise 'fast-track' schedule allowing no amendments and no motions of any kind, and with an up-or-down vote automatically occurring at the conclusion of only 20 hours of debate." Then Helms made his request: "I implore you to inform the Senate that you are willing for consideration of the GATT implementation bill to be delayed until very early in 1995, thereby permitting meaningful public hearings at which significant witnesses on both sides can be heard." Helms also added this not very veiled threat: If the President would put off GATT, this would have an "exceedingly positive effect" on Helms' willingness to let the administration's foreign policy positions be "considered both fairly and fully." As Human Events readers are aware, many conservatives are extremely wary of the new GATT, with its World Trade Organization (WTO) component. So alarmed, in fact, have been a number of Senate Republicans over the agreement that, along with Helms, Senators Strom Thurmond (S.C.), Larry Pressler (S.D.) and Larry Craig (Idaho) introduced a "sense of the Senate" resolution during the summer calling for creation of a joint task force of administration officials and congressmen to determine whether the new agreement should be considered a treaty needing two-thirds Senate approval before its provisions could be enacted. (The resolution never got anywhere, and thus the implementation of the new GATT's provisions will need just a majority vote in the House and 60 votes - seven less than required for the ratification of a treaty - in the Senate to waive the Budget Act of 1974 in order to bring it up for a vote.) The senators, however, noted that 42 state attorneys general have warned that the 123-member WTO could run roughshod over state or local laws that it deems illegally interfere with international trade. As a party to the WTO, the attorneys general said, the United States "would be obligated to change local, state and federal laws determined by a secret WTO panel to be 'GATT-illegal,' or face perpetual trade sanctions." GINGRICH ADMITS WTO POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS The senators also stressed that, unlike the current GATT agreement, the "United States will have only one vote and no veto rights in the WTO. The single-vote structure will give the European Union the capacity to outvote the United States 12 to 1. It will also give the island of St. Kitts, with a population of 60,000, the same voting power as the United States. The United States will have less than 1% of the total vote, but will be assessed almost 20% of the total cost of operating the WTO....State officials have no standing before WTO tribunals even if a state law is challenged as an illegal trade barrier." What is somewhat astonishing is that the two Republican leaders of the new Congress - Sen. Robert Dole (Kan.) and Rep. Newt Gingrich (Ga.) - favor GATT and the WTO, despite major reservations, and want the current, lame-duck Congress to vote on the legislation when it returns in less than two weeks. Incoming Speaker Gingrich, though now backing the new GATT, earlier this year said he was worried that the trade organization would become a "Third World-dominated, dictatorship-dominated system" that could exert authority over U.S. economic policies and infringe on national sovereignty. Gingrich declared, "I'm for world trade, but I'm against world government." Even when he had clearly shifted to a favorable view, he acknowledged the WTO's dangers. Sitting in on House Ways and Means Committee hearings on the WTO earlier this year, Gingrich noted that "[T]his is not just another trade agreement. This is adopting something which twice, once in the 1940s and once in the 1950s, the United States Congress rejected. I am not even saying we should reject it; I, in fact, lean toward it, but I think we have to be very careful, because it is a very big transfer of power." Indeed, as we noted in our July 1 issue, Gingrich likened GATT to the "Maastricht" treaty governing much of Europe, by which individual states have surrendered an unprecedented degree of economic sovereignty. We need "to be honest about the fact," Gingrich allowed, "that we are transferring from the United States at a practical level significant authority to a new organization. This is a transformational moment. I would feel better if the people who favor this would just be honest about the scale of change." If even supporters of the new GATT are admitting its potentially vast dangers to the United States, what's wrong with Helm's suggestion that the liberal Congress so overwhelmingly repudiated by the American people on November 8 should be cut out of the voting picture entirely? [end] Source: Human Events Inside Washington November 25, 1994 ------------------------------------------------ (This file was found elsewhere on the Internet and uploaded to the Radio Free Michigan archives by the archive maintainer. All files are ZIP archives for fast download. E-mail bj496@Cleveland.Freenet.Edu)