WTO aims for global governance: the December WTO agenda puts American jobs, food production, and immigration in the UN's world government cross hairs.

When President Bush appointed former Ohio Congressman Rob Portman to be U.S. trade representative in 2005, he made it clear that one of his missions would be to help get Congress to approve the 34-nation Free Trade Areas of the Americas (FTAA) agreement. Another top mission for Mr. Portman would be to step up the push for the elimination of all tariffs and subsidies, the target of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). The president put this program before the American people, asserting, "Millions of American jobs depend on exports ... and America's farmers and workers can compete with anybody, anytime, anywhere in the world so long as the rules are fair."

My observations of global meetings since 1995 have convinced me those global rules are never fair. And the president's professed confidence in American workers cannot overcome them. Besides, it is unconstitutional for the executive branch or a global body like the WTO to direct and regulate U.S. trade policies; instead, it is the responsibility of the U.S. Congress, the legislative branch. Likewise, it is the responsibility of Congress--not the White House or the WTO--to determine U.S. immigration policy. However, the WTO has presumed to designate this a "trade" issue also, under the rubric of regulating what it refers to as "the movement of natural persons."

America's presence at the WTO meeting in Hong Kong gave credibility to the wholly unaccountable UN that supervised the infamous "Iraqi oil-for-food" trade debacle. The WTO, which is a UN specialized agency, is actually the most powerful global body in the world, since it has the authority to sanction countries that fail to adhere to its trade rules.

Typical of UN and WTO conferences, the Hong Kong confab was a completely stage-managed affair, with WTO head Pascal Lamy and his corps of "facilitators" orchestrating a preordained outcome to give an appearance of global "consensus."

The chief aim of the Hong Kong meeting was to complete negotiations aimed at eliminating farm subsidies that hit an impasse in Doha, Qatar, in 2001. The WTO and World Bank have led the attacks on farm subsidies; they hope to see billions of dollars that now go to farmers in the U.S. and the European Union transferred instead to the world's "poor"--funneled through the offices of the World Bank and other UN agencies, of course.

World Bank Vice President Danny Leipziger complained that during the first three days of the Hong Kong meetings, "rich" countries gave $2 billion in subsidies to their farmers. During that same time period, Leipziger said, the "poor" countries in Africa collectively earned less than $1 billion in total income from all sources among them. The European Union joined the World Bank and WTO to demand that the U.S. give cash to starving people around the globe, instead of subsidized food to the hungry.

While there is no indication yet as to whether the administration will give in to the extortion demands for cash, the U.S. nonetheless committed to eliminate export subsidies on agricultural products, possibly by 2010. These WTO commitments and agreements turn out to be a form of international legislation, which WTO tribunals can later adjudicate and enforce. As a result, U.S. citizens lose their constitutional protections and the accountability of their elected officials.

The GATT-WTO "free trade" treaty is not only unfair, it is impossible! Consider the contrast of "free trade" that exists among the 50 states comprising the United States with the WTO model. "Free trade" works among the 50 states because Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution empowers Congress to regulate interstate commerce. Secondly, all 50 states come under the ultimate pronouncements of the U.S. Supreme Court. Thirdly, all 50 states hold to the same federal laws regarding banking, labor, and the environment. Fourthly, all 50 states use the same currency. The fifth reason that "free trade" works among the 50 states is that Article 1, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution forbids all 50 states from impairing contracts or, according to Amendment V, from confiscating property without due process.

In light of these facts, one can understand that the campaign for global "free trade" is in reality a call for global governance/government that would hamstring American industries and workers to instigate a ruse to redistribute wealth globally.

In spite of that, Ambassador Portman told conferees that President Bush envisions a "free trade" world without subsidies or tariffs, even though the existing GATT-WTO has helped create the biggest trade deficit in U.S. history. Trivializing the trade gap that ballooned 24.3 percent last year and set a record for the third straight year at $617.1 billion, Portman commented, $ "Yes, we have a trade deficit. Yes, it is a political issue as well as a substantive issue back home. This does not mean that the United States is going to back off of our strong promotion of market access, across the board."

The American delegation uttered blind allegiance to the GATT-WTO government-managed trade policies even though it is clear that other WTO countries intend to use any agreement to fleece America. Acknowledging U.S. citizens' opposition to the huge deficit, undoubtedly enhanced by GATT-WTO, the American delegation boasted about "leaning forward and reaching out" to accommodate the global agenda in tune with the multinational corporations.

The U.S. delegation in Hong Kong said that the "drop dead" date for completion of the Doha Round is mid-2007 when the President's Trade Promotion Authority, also known as "fast track," expires. Fast track is the unconstitutional provision that allows the executive branch to force agreements through Congress with mandatory deadlines, severely limited debate, and no amendments. These trade agreements also evade the two-thirds vote margin requirement for approval of treaties by the U.S. Senate.

Most onerous to the majority of Americans is the "Mode 4, Annex C of the General Agreement on Trade in Services" (GATS) in the Hong Kong document proposal, which would create a global guest-worker program. It calls for nations to ride roughshod over their immigration laws, in order to move non-citizens into jobs. Those non-citizens would then not be allowed to move from one job to another, but would be enslaved to the multi-national corporate job they crossed borders to seize.

The global guest-worker scheme would not only put Americans' jobs at risk, it would also undermine our national security, as affirmed by recent terrorist acts by radical Muslims in Europe, a consequence of the European Union's open border policies. It should also concern Americans that Saudi Arabia is the newest member of the WTO, since most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis.

Can you imagine a guest-worker program imposed by the WTO that would demand obedience to their corrupt rules or suffer sanctions on our trade? Such a scheme would ravage national sovereignty and national security. The Bush administration is already working to implement many of these WTO objectives piecemeal through its various immigration proposals. Together with his allies in Congress and on Wall Street, President Bush is pushing a WTO-style "guest worker" program that proposes to "match any willing employer with any willing worker." At the same time, the White House-Congress-Corporate alliance has pushed through a huge boost of H-1B visas, which allows hi-tech workers (primarily from India, China, and Pakistan) to flood the U.S. job market. The administration recently backed the legislation to raise the number of annual H-1B visas from the already high 65,000 to 350,000!

Americans, you and I must decide whether our country is made great by the quantity of goods we consume or by the quantity of goods we produce. We must consider the consequences if we are willing to pull the plug on our ability to manufacture goods or to control our own trade.

Cathie Adams, president of Texas Eagle Forum and a frequent correspondent for USA Radio Network at international summits, has attended numerous UN and WTO conferences since 1995.