wrote in message
...
On Wed, 12 Nov 2003 17:22:08 GMT, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

"Jimbo" . wrote in message
...
US softwood lumber tariffs against Canada where also found unsuppotable
by
the WTO last month. However the US government was given another 100
days
to spice up their claims and try and prove Canadian softwood lumber
inports
into the USA where actually damaging the domestic producers.

I doubt Bush will overturn the tariffs no matter what the WTO says so
the
American consumers looses and Canadian's loose jobs.

There are supposed to be free trade negotiations between Oz & the
US. No way can we get a fair deal when all your farmers are
subsidised by the billions of dollars. Our farmers receive no
production subsidies - unless you count minuscule drought relief aid,
subject to strict conditions, when they are on the bones of their
arse, with no income, a subsidy. We are only permitted to send so
much beef, lamb etc and when the limit is reached, no more and so you
have to pay more in the shops.

2003 Trade figures to September are roughly 2: 1 in US favour
Exports to Oz $9,794.6 million Imports from Oz $4,726.6 million
Balance in US favour $5,068.0 million and if you examine the
figures for the last 19 years they are all similar, we buy about twice
as much as we sell, plus of course profits sent back by US owned
companies.

If you are in the market for a new car, please buy a Pontiac GTO,
a rebadged Holden Monaro, still a GM product but designed & built
tough in Oz, where we have harsh conditions for cars.

Alan
in beautiful Golden Bay, Western Oz, South 32.25.42, East 115.45.44
GMT+8
VK6 YAB ICQ 6581610 to reply, change oz to au in address

Australia is another country that could benefit from an extension of
offsets, which you already use to good effect on your purchases of civilian
aircraft (they represent nearly half of your trade deficit, but they're a
wash in your overall balance of trade because you require large purchases by
Boeing that are then sold on US markets) and military hardware. As it is,
you depend heavily on ag exports and you need large markets to make much of
a dent in your overall deficit.

You have a difficult job of maintaining balance otherwise, and it shows
little sign of changing. The ag subsidies of Japan, the US, and particularly
the EU, which deep-sixed Australia's anti-subsidy initiative at the Seattle
meeting of the WTO, are not likely to change much in the short term. But
those are the markets you really need. If there's a better example than ag
subsidies of how trade is unfree and unfair, I don't know what it is.
They're so ingrained in the social structures of each of those large trading
partners of yours, however, that there's little chance they'll be unraveled
soon.

You have much more hope of making gains with the US than with the others. I
expect some specific easings of US ag-market protections specifically to
help Australia's situation. But you also have resistance within your own
cattle industry to breaking down barriers in both directions. It isn't going
to be easy.

Ed Huntress