From: gld@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gary L Dare)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: G.A.T.T. FACTS (1)
Date: 31 Jul 92 03:45:41 GMT
Reply-To: gld@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gary L Dare)
Organization: Curious Goods (formerly Louis Vendredi Antiques)

harelb@MATH.CORNELL.EDU (Harel Barzilai) writes:
>
>===============================
>The Dunkel Draft:  U.S.  Impact
>===============================
>
>First, under the Dunkel draft proposal, federal law would preempt any
>state and local laws that had even minor bearing on trade.

I believe that for the United States, this already exists under
enforcement of foreign treaties signed by the federal government.

In April, during the first beer trade war of the year with Canada, the
U.S. complained that big Canadian brewers Labatt and Molson were
dumping brew on the States.  Also, the U.S. wanted to speed domestic
Canadian liberalization to allow foreign (including U.S.) access much
sooner (this did not include Busch (Bud), Miller and Coors who already
have brewing contracts with Labatt and Molson to supply the Canadian
and Caribbean markets -- those versions are fuller and stronger in
their taste than their U.S. parent brands) out of an outstanding GATT
ruling that went against Canada a few years ago.  The U.S.  complaints
backfired, because a second GATT ruling that agreed with their case
for access also brought down local tax subsidies (to Busch for one)
and state shipping restrictions that kept out other beer brands ...
instead of Canada going through numerous costly local American court
challenges leading up to the Supreme Court, Washington inadvertently
brought down those laws from the top down by enforcement of treaties
under the American Constitution ...  bravo, I say! (-;

Labatt and Molson are now consolidating their plants, but have taken
advantage of the recent US-Canada liberalization (due to both GATT and
recent Washington complaints) buy turning some plants into domestic-
only production and others export-only.  A couple of plants have
closed 'cos they're too small, and the rest have cranked up to full
capacity.  Ironically, after the dumping charges were turned down by
GATT and U.S. state/local laws illegal under GATT were knocked down,
Labatt and Molson announced that their brands will be even cheaper
States-side because of the liberalization there due to GATT.

A second irony is that in the second beer war now underway against the
province of Ontario, an environmental tax imposed on Heilemann's and 
Stroh's cans is legitimate under GATT and the U.S. has sworn that it
will not go to GATT with this even if the Canadians do so.  This is
quite reminiscent of the World Court and Nicaraguan harbour mining.

(For the ideologically bent, Ontario is led by the New Democratic
Party, sorta Canada's Labour, but is more market-oriented then the
pro-business-but-highly-state-enterprise Liberals (classical) over
in Quebec, who have the same GATT-allowed taxes on imported cans.)

gld
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Je me souviens ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gary L. Dare				Elections 1992-93:
> gld@cunixB.cc.columbia.EDU		* Jean Chretien (Canada)
> gld@cunixc.BITNET			* Perot^H^H^H^H^H Elvis! (USA)