1. The World Trade Organization is not legitimate. The WTO does not have a permanent judiciary but hires lawyers, often who have conflicts of interest, to be temporary judges. In the Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) case, a Mexican attorney chaired the panel that ruled against US in favor of Mexico. Unlike the Trump University case with a US-born judge of Mexican heritage, this Mexican judge was illegitimate because he had a current conflict of interest. The panel chair in the COOL case was Ricardo Ramírez-Hernández, a Mexican citizen who has represented Mexico in trade matters. In addition, WTO proceedings are not open to the public or the press, but should be. Court proceedings in the US are almost always open to the press and the public. The WTO ruled that the US could not require cattlemen from Mexico and Canada to label their beef as “Product of Mexico,” or “Product of Canada.”
2. The House of Representatives Voted To Repeal COOL for meat, caving in to Canada and Mexico, even though the US Trade Representative was then negotiating with Mexico and Canada. Now our cattlemen have lost $20 billion because consumers are not informed about where their meat comes from.
3. Country of Origin Labeling Act is supported by 90% of America consumers and farmers. You must push Congress to put labeling back on meat.
4. Canada charges 300% duties on American dairy products and chicken. Our very “nice” neighbors to the north have been screwing us on trade in dairy, chicken, beer and autos for years.
5. Mexico illegally subsidizes sugar and steel. You forgot to give Mexico and Canada notice on Jan. 20th that we are getting out of NAFTA.
6. Army and Navy PXs don’t sell many made-in-USA products. With a stroke of your pen, you can create 100,000 jobs by requiring the Army and Navy to buy American-made products and offer them to their soldiers and sailors. I have put together a group of American manufacturers who can supply the Defense Department with hundreds of products for their PX stores.
7. The Department of Defense is dependent on Russia and China for rockets and fuel for the Hellfire missile. Changing this is a no brainer.
8. The Export-Import Bank was allowed to expire despite the fact that Europe and China have similar institutions to finance exports. This puts our companies, like Boeing and Caterpillar, at an economic disadvantage.
9. China cheats at trade by manipulating currency, stealing intellectual property and by illegally dumping in US. It is time to start tough negotiations with China.
10. Most American drug manufacturers have moved to Ireland because of its 12.5% tax rate, including Pfizer, largest drug company in the world, maker of Lipitor and Viagra. We don’t have to cut our tax rate to their level, just impose a countervailing duty on drugs from Ireland.
11. Some 80% percent of our generic drugs are imported from India and China. At the same time, the FDA is incapable of inspecting plants in Asia. Most Americans do not want to buy drugs from India or China.
12. CVS and most major drugstores fail to put country-of-origin labels on prescription drugs despite federal law that requires it. I have asked the attorney general to get tough with our drugstores and require country-of-origin labeling. The law currently allows criminal prosecution for anyone mislabeling drugs. Transferring drugs from a labeled bottle (that CVS gets from Pfizer) and putting it in an unlabeled bottle is a criminal violation.
Joel Joseph is chairman of the Made in the USA Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting American-made products. Email joeldjoseph@gmail.com. Phone 310 MADE-USA
From The Progressive Populist, May 1, 2017
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