From: New Liberation News Service <nlns@igc.apc.org>
Subject: NEWS: US Bosses Open Trade War on E
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: ?
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 23:56:36 GMT

/* Written  3:24 pm  Nov 16, 1992 by nyt@nyxfer.UUCP in igc:apc.labor */
/* ---------- "NEWS: US Bosses Open Trade War on E" ---------- */
Subject: NEWS: US Bosses Open Trade War on Europe/ww
From: nyxfer!nyt (NY Transfer News)


Via The NY Transfer News Service * All the News that Doesn't Fit


            U.S. BOSSES OPEN TRADE WAR AGAINST EUROPE

                       By Rebeca Toledo

The Wall Street Journal calls it "Operation Vineyard Storm." It 
is the Bush administration's belligerent announcement on Nov. 5 
threatening to put a 200-percent import tax on all white wines 
from the European Community. This was, as the New York Times put 
it, "the first shot in what may become a trade war." 

U.S. officials said they would impose the sanctions a month from 
now unless the EC limits its subsidies on the production of 
soybeans, sunflower seeds and other oil seeds. The European 
countries whose exports will be most affected are France, 
Germany, and Italy.

The big business press here is especially targeting the French 
government of Francois Mitterrand. It wants the French 
capitalists to adopt agricultural policies that will bankrupt 
many small farmers in the same way that farmers here went under 
during the eighties. However, French farmers are well organized 
and have demonstrated time and again that they won't be ruined by
the government. Just this past summer, farmers in France 
mobilized and shut down an entire city with their tractors.

The EC, led by France, met on Nov. 9 to discuss whether they are 
strong enough to mount a counter-measure and impose their own 
taxes on U.S. goods.

When the capitalist governments impose tariffs, they call it 
"protectionism," and claim to be saving workers' jobs here. But 
such acts usually accelerate a trade war which ends up with more 
tariffs all around, to be paid for in higher prices. While most 
workers may not worry too much about the price of imported white 
wine, a trade war will bring about inflation in many more vital 
goods.

For the European workers and particularly the farmers, the goods 
they produce will be harder to sell at such exorbitant prices. 
And if the EC decides to impose its own sanctions, the workers in
all the affected countries will be paying more.

Why do the capitalists start a trade war in the first place? Was 
the Great Depression of the 1930s caused by high tariffs, as they
often tell us in school? In fact, tariffs are a result and not a 
cause of the worldwide capitalist economic crisis. In times of 
dire depression like this, caused by overproduction, the 
capitalists desperately seek to undercut one another in the 
struggle for markets for their goods.

They will bleed the workers of all their money, but will not stop
there. They will also lead the workers into bloody wars for 
control of new or old markets. They will stop at nothing. It is 
the workers who have to stop them. 

                             -30-

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted 
if source is cited. For more info contact Workers World, 46 W. 21
St., New York, NY 10010; "workers" on PeaceNet; on Internet: 
"workers@mcimail.com".)

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