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Old 11-16-2007, 08:34 PM
BluffTHIS! BluffTHIS! is offline
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Default Re: November 14th: House Judiciary Committee Hearing Thread

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IMO, the WTO will either grant Antiqua its requested IP sanctions which will cause the Democrats in Congress to force compliance with WTO on the Bush Administration and the states or the WTO will not grant Antiqua its requested IP sanctions in that event the WTO will become as worthless as the UN, most medium to small members will leave the WTO or ignore it and even the large members will ignore it. If the latter occurs the international trade system might break down. The last time that happened the world suffered a Great Depression and Adolf Hitler rose to power. Now the economies of most nations are much more interdependent than in the 1920's. But that might make a resolution much quicker and less costly.
I hope that the WTO chooses to enforce its rulings unlike the worthless UN.

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3bn to Antigua and Japan and Australia will say [censored] you to the USTR. Its a magic number that determines what we get.

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I think the important thing is in the last quote above from the previous post of yours, i.e. the exact number. There is a spectrum between nothing and very substantial with the sanctions number, especially as you note because the more substantial the more potential for other nations to claim large compensation, and the less substantial the greater the likelihood of the WTO being seen as a toothless entity with the possible serious trade results.

My concern is that the number or exact nature of negotiated concessions if that comes about at this late date, will be of a middling variety that only takes care of Antigua enough to get them off their market access demand, while not being serious enough for us to leverage our own cause.

If the number is not set fairly large, much closer to Antigua's estimates than that of the U.S., then a small number will more likely be paid by the US, which will then claim it has taken care of the matter and has no further commitments, and just moves on and pretends it never happened.

Also there is the question, which I have seen asked of Jay Cohen a couple times, and which he answered, but which answers I'm not sure I understood 100%. That question is whether Antigua would be willing to be compensated in other ways than market access as part of a negotiated settlement, even if such compensation were ongoing and not one time. If Antigua could be so satisfied, then the whole issue wouldn't benefit our cause.
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