"Free Trade, not more aid!" That has become the chant from several African heads of state. Aid hasn't worked and now they would rather try free-trade.
Not only should the richest nations want free trade with the world's poorest, they should do all they can to assure the success of those presently failed economies.
There are tight connections between the failure of the world's poorest economies and the severity of some of the western world's most formidable problems:
Illegal Immigration Political Instability and Terrorism Illicit Drugs Extreme Poverty
Though they might not be the intended objectives of our trade policies,
these costly and dangerous problems are often the unintended consequences
of those policies. Their impact has been to force an increasing number
of farmers to give-up their land and join the huddled masses in the next
big city. There they become the world's poor and politically desperate
who stand to benefit from taking actions which, though beneficial to them,
create some of the industrialized world's greatest problems. These
are vexing problems to all nations, but most strongly felt by the richest
nations.
The benefits would come to the rich nations by reducing the effects of those problems. It's hard to assign dollar, or Euro or Yen, amounts to the costs of each of those problems but worldwide hundreds of billions are spent annually on those problems. There are also massive human costs that cannot be quantified. The excessive sums of money the US, Europe and Japan now spend on costly and ineffective solutions to those persistent problems would be freed-up and those savings could then be re-directed to aid those citizens of the rich world whose livelihoods will be at risk once those decades old artificial protective trade barriers are eliminated.
International trade is an extremely complex subject, but the potential benefits for the developed nations are so huge that it is worth our best efforts to pursue those just changes.
This aspect of free trade needs to be addressed by any candidate wanting to be the next President of the United States. The benefits to all of us could be tremendous and the dividend could be peace.
Lew Mermelstein
lewm@ieee.org
September 16, 2003
Last revised February 27, 2004
As more connections are identified between the world's poorest lives
and major problems of the rich industrialized nations they will be added
to this list. Please email (lewm@ieee.org) your suggestions for new
connections, with references to reputable sources.
Heads of State:
Africa Subsidizing
the West, Says Museveni Following Meeting With Bush
Development is Being Destroyed By Subsidies, Mali President Tells Congressional Committee
U.S. farm policy sows ire in Africa
Trade, Not Aid -- Key to Africa's Economic Growth, Says Ghana Trade Minister
Illegal
Immigration
Farmers, whose crop prices can't
compete with world prices (i.e., subsidized) give up on farming, leave
rural areas and flood urban areas looking for work. Those who can't
find work in their own country go where the money is, the developed nations
of Europe and the USA as immigrants, causing xenophobic reactions
among those citizens.
In a powerful speech to the African Development Bank, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi argued that the hopeless poverty of developing nations has resulted in increased emigration to Europe and other industrialized nations, a trend which has recently given rise to neo-fascist reactions in France and Germany. He called, not for increased foreign aid, but for equitable trade as a way for poor nations to compete in world markets and stem the flow of emigration. Contrary to his dream, most industrialized nations are strengthening their borders against illegal immigrants and stepping-up their national defenses.
"...Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles
Zenawi ... received a standing ovation after his speech, said millions
had fled Africa in a desperate bid to escape the poverty and wars that
have blighted the continent. (Zenawi said) 'Massive immigration and human
trafficking becomes a global problem. It has already reached the magnitude
where countries in the developed world are being forced to see some sections
of society drift towards a xenophobic and fascist tendency, as current
electoral trends in Europe indicate.' "
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=27961&SelectRegion=Horn_of_Africa&SelectCountry=ETHIOPIA
'... Maltese Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami ... said it would benefit
both Europe and Africa "to regulate the flow " of immigrants.
"We have to reduce disparities and create a partnership between our
countries to meet the challenges which confront us," said the host of the
summit, Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.'
BBC Europe presses Africa on migrants, 5 December, 2003
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/africa/3295949.stm
Political
Instability and Terrorism
Unemployed farmers have created
political instability in many countries by demanding their governments
help them and look for new political leadership when the government in-power
fails to deliver answers to their problems. Desperate conditions
in impoverished nations are 'fertile fields' from which powerful, and often
rich, terrorists recruit comrades to join them in their fight against,
what is portrayed as, the common oppressor.
Massive poverty often gives rise to political instability creating legions of potential martyrs. As new political centers form, revolutionary charismatic leaders conjure-up a future in which past wrongs are made right, sometimes attracting desperate followers who have little left to lose or to fear.
"...He's poor, and he's got a TV
set and he's able to see how you live as compared to how he lives, he's
going to get very angry. So either you show him a capitalist route to do
it and integrate him, or he's going to find another ideology. The fact
that today there is no [longer] a Kremlin that is organizing revolt doesn't
mean that they're not going to find another capital, because when these
things happen, when people are unhappy and rebel against a system, they'll
find another locus of power very, very quickly."
Hernando de Soto, economist,
Commanding
Heights, WGBH, Boston
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/lo/people/pe_name.html
'The North African leaders agreed that they urgently needed to improve
security, but said that poverty and hopelessness was driving young men
in their countries to extremist groups.
"We should not forget the need to control the underlying causes of
terrorism," said Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika."'
BBC Europe presses Africa on migrants, 5 December, 2003
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/africa/3295949.stm
Illicit
Drugs
Economically desperate farmers often
resort to growing much higher priced crops of illicit drugs to make a modest
living, and at the same time, live in fear of imprisonment.
Until the United States imposed its definition of illegal drugs, through the League of Nations and later the UN, farmers were free to grow whatever they wanted. The prohibition of some plants created a market scarcity, which in turn, made the cultivation of those plants quit profitable. Indeed, few crops are as profitable as those we call illicit drugs. An OXFAM internal report on the impact of a 1997 WTO Panel Report for the Caribbean banana markets predicts the disastrous impact of the WTO reforms.
"...the Islands' governments...would be severely threatened, as those in power struggled to cope with rising deprivation and social unrest. Low prices, together with the uncertainty over the future of the banana industry, have led to a loss of confidence among farmers. Some are already leaving the land, and unemployment is rising. There is a very real danger that farmers could resort to what, for many, would be their only economic alternative: illegal drugs.
A plot with a few dozen marijuana plants on a small-holding will fetch up to 30 times more per kilo than a farmer's banana crop....
There is an irony in the fact that the consequences of the WTO ruling would in fact rebound on the US by increasing the flow of drugs, and illegal immigrants into the country: issues of primary concern for US foreign policy. There is also potential for an increased influx of drugs to Europe, which could challenge the success of the British Government's initiative on combating the trafficking of illicit drugs in Europe."
Oxfam GB Policy Paper - Mar 98, A
Future for Caribbean Bananas, Copyright Oxfam GB
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/policy/papers/bananas/bananas.htm
"One set of poppy farming brothers
told the Christian Science Monitor in July that they now make 12 times
their former income from farming wheat, a crop hard to cultivate in the
country's arid climate. The average estimated family income in Afghanistan
is $300; for families that farm poppy the average is $6,500."
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/asia/afghanistan/aug03/drugs.html
Online NewsHour
Extreme
Poverty
Reducing global poverty is the obvious
reason to eliminate trade barriers and subsidies. Only when trade
barriers are eliminated will all the world's farmers and artisans have
a fighting chance of supporting their families, and their nations, with
their own honest labor.
For decades the 'developed' nations have been unable to effectively address these problems and it is time for a different path.
There will be overwhelming opposition to eliminating, or reducing, trade barriers from the farm communities and artisans of the developed nations, but it is an idea whose time will eventually come. Corrections will undoubtedly occur either through our own efforts, through the forces of other nations or, in the long-term, the forces of nature. It would be better for us to choose those substantial corrections now than to have onerous corrections suddenly thrust upon us some unknown time in the future.
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