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The U.S. participation in the WTO is historic. For the first time in U.S. history, the Congress agreed to subordinate its powers to set U.S. trade policy to an international body. It agreed that were there a conflict between U.S. trade laws and WTO rules, the U.S. would change its laws to follow WTO rules or pay damages set by the WTO.
Under the WTO rules, it is illegal for the United States to give any priority whatsoever to American-owned companies that wish to operate in the U.S. The Buy-America laws have effectively been repealed by an international treaty.
The new WTO global regime of trade encourages corporations to shift their production, and increasingly their research and development, from the industrialized world with its high wages, benefits, and worker protections to developing nations filled with penny-wage labor and lax government regulations. Then, the WTO rules also allow those companies to bring their products back into the rich world markets duty free.
The open market policies advanced by the WTO and supported by a bipartisan majority in both Houses of the U.S. Congress have led to a rapid dismantling of the American economy. Since the mid-1990s, the U.S. has accumulated a trade deficit of more than $5 trillion, the largest unilateral transfer of wealth in history. Put into context, as recently as 1970, the United States manufactured here almost 95 percent of all that it consumed. Today, it produces less than half that portion.
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