Whether or not subsidies are warranted or fair is an issue that needs to be reviewed but once again Bush and the GOP love to attack anyone who fails to subscribe to their jury rigged system of supposed free trade. When a foreign country calls them out and takes them to court, the result often is the same. This time it was Brazil who took the US to court and won with the WTO ruling against US subsidies to cotton farmers.
"The panel found that the changes made by the United States were insufficient to bring the challenged measures — certain support payments under the 2002 Farm Bill and export credit guarantees — into conformity with U.S. WTO obligations," it said in an e-mailed statement Monday. "We are very disappointed with these results."
The United States has argued that it sufficiently overhauled its cotton program when it scrapped two export credit guarantee programs and last year repealed the so-called Step-2 cotton-marketing program that made payments to exporters and domestic mill users as compensation for buying higher-priced American cotton.
But Brazil said Washington's continued support for American cotton producers ensured artificially high production and export levels, hurting Brazilian and African producers.
The Brazilian government claims the U.S. retained its place as the world's second-largest cotton grower by paying out $12.5 billion in government subsidies to American farmers between August 1999 and July 2003. China is the largest exporter of cotton, while Brazil is fifth.
The GOP can always talk the talk, but never walk the walk.
