| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
legal
Site Admin
Joined: 18 Aug 2004
Posts: 510
|
 Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 9:17 am Post subject: International criticisms of U.S. unilateralism |
 |
|
International community joins Antigua in criticizing U.S. unilateralism:
The Globe and Mail
Dull Toronto Trombone
Putin links current U.S. policy, Third Reich
By Andrew E. Kramer
May 10/07
| Quote: | President Vladimir Putin obliquely compared the foreign policy of the United States to the Third Reich in a speech yesterday commemorating the 62nd anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, apparently in an escalation of anti-American talk within the Russian government.
The comments were the latest in a series of sharply worded Russian criticisms of the foreign policy of the United States - on Iraq, missile defence, NATO expansion and more broadly, U.S. unilateralism in foreign affairs. (emphasis added)
Many Russians say the sharper edge reflects frustration that Russia's views, in particular opposition to NATO expansion, have been ignored in the West. Outside Russia, however, observers detected in the new tone a return to Cold War-style antagonism, emboldened by oil wealth. ( -- p. A10) |
A word about Putin's own involvement in the gambling industry:
Vanity Fair
Magazine Subscription
Dead Soul
Chosen as Russia's next leader by Boris Yeltsin's inner circle in 1999, Vladimir Putin appeared to be a blank slate on which his supporters, his country, and the world could write their desires. Few saw what he really was, or the way he brutally erased his footprints on the climb to power. Fewer still have survived to decode him. As Russian forces bend Georgia to their will, Masha Gessen tells how one small, faceless man - backed by the vast secret-police machine that formed him - took control of the world's largest country
October, 2008
| Quote: | Putin was himself in no hurry to leave the K.G.B., and he would continue to draw a K.G.B. salary—indeed, the salary was more than he earned at city hall. Before long Putin had made himself the mayor's point man for business of all sorts. In particular, he was attempting to gain control of the emerging gaming industry. In the end, he succeeded in securing for the city a 51 per cent share of all of St, Petersburg's casinos—but this, he later claimed, did nothing for the city's coffers, because casino managers ran with the cash. Something similar, he said, also happened with federal credits the city was supposed to use to stimulate food imports in the early1990s: he claimed that the private companies contracted by the city vanished with the money. The 1992 investigation by the (deputy Marina) Salye commission drew a different conclusion: the partnerships with private companies were structured in such a way as to siphon money with impunity.
This was not the only allegation of misconduct leveled against Putin: in 1999 the St. Petersburg prosecutor's officel aunched an investigation into the alleged misappropriation of some $4.5 million earmarked for reconstruction projects; the investigation was closed in August 2000, after Putin became president. One of the investigators on the case has since joined a monastery—another form of internal exile—while the other has retired. Everyone named by the investigation now has a top government position—including Russia's current president, Dmitry Medvedev, who, if the prosecutors are to be believed, was the man who actually engineered the transfers of earmarked funds.
Scorched Earth in St. Petersburg
It was as deputy mayor that Putin finally got to play the roles he had yearned for as achild; he was both a shadow ruler and a thug. Here he was, a buttoned-down bureaucrat, making and breaking businesses and careers, now allowing the future oligarch Berezovskyto open up a car dealership in St, Petersburg and magnanimously waving away a bribe, now grabbing a controlling share of all the casinos in the city. He made enemies, and these enemies apparently wanted to kill him.I n 1994, Putin's wife's car was broadsided in a hit-and-run collision that everyone interpreted as an assassination attempt, Lyudmila Putin survived major spinal injuries, but her recovery took years. Putin began sleeping with a pump riñe, saying, "It may not save me, but it calms me down."None of this was particularly unusual in the chaotic, crime-ridden Russia of the mid-1990s. (-- p. 383) |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/legal/viewtopic.php?p=359#359
Last edited by legal on Mon Feb 02, 2009 1:48 pm; edited 34 times in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
legal
Site Admin
Joined: 18 Aug 2004
Posts: 510
|
| Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 12:07 pm Post subject: |
|
|
U.S. trade position pre-Bush - Pushing hard for trade liberalization:
PBS
Clinton addresses the WTO
Dec. 1/99
| Quote: | I would like to say, first of all, I think we need to do a better job of making the basic case. No one in this room can seriously argue that the world would have been a better place today if our forebears over the last 50 years had not done their work to bring us closer together. Whatever the problems that exist, in whatever countries represented here -- whatever the legitimacy of any of the criticism against us -- this is a stronger, more prosperous world because we have worked to expand the frontiers of cooperation and reduce the barriers to trade among people. And we need to reiterate our conviction that that is true. (emphasis added) If we were all out here going on our own, we would not be as well off in the world as we are.
Secondly, at the end of the Cold War, I am sure everyone in this room has been struck by the cruel irony that in this most modern of ages -- when the Internet tells us everything, as Mr. Moore said; when we are solving all the problems of the human gene and we will soon know what's in the black holes in the universe -- it is truly ironic when the biggest problems of human societies are the oldest ones, those rooted in our fear of those who are different from us -- different races, different ethnic groups, different tribes, different religions. All over the world, people consumed by differences.
When people are working together for common prosperity in a rule-based system, they have big incentives to lay the differences down and join hands to work together. So if we just make those two points to our critics, I think it's very important. Number one, the world is a better place than it would have been, had we not had the last 50 years of increasing economic cooperation for trade and investment. And number two, the world of the future will be a safer place if we continue to work together in a rule-based system that offers enormous incentives for people to find ways to cooperate and to give up their old hatreds and their impulses to violence and war. (emphasis added)
Now, having said that, we now have to say: what next? I think we have to acknowledge a responsibility, particularly those of us in the wealthier countries, to make sure that we are working harder to see that the benefits of the global economy are more widely shared among and within countries -- that it truly works for ordinary people who are doing the work for the rest of us. |
* View the White House Fact Sheet accompanying Clinton's speech:
| Quote: | BETTER INTEGRATING POOR COUNTRIES INTO THE GLOBAL TRADING SYSTEM.
The initiative that the President is promoting, along with European Union, Japan and Canada, would provide enhanced market access for the poorest countries. |
| Quote: | | *Note: Links to the White House Fact Sheet seemed to be in the process of re-ordering when we tested them May 16/07. We'll continue to search for the originals, which we first posted May 19/06. Please check back for updates. |
Washington International Trade Council
The WTO, Free Trade and Their Critics – the Need for Education
By Donald Marsh
| Quote: | ... Many of the protesters in Seattle advocated the WTO be more open. This view is now widely supported, so that people may better understand the WTO's objectives and means and be able to submit their views on WTO deliberations. But the WTO should not become a political football, subject to the influence of special interest groups at the sacrifice of growth in global well-being.
The most effective response to the Seattle protesters, and the way to avoid future stalemates among WTO members, is a greatly enhanced effort to educate the public of how increasing free flows of goods, services and capital will, as they have in the past, provide higher living standards for people everywhere. Thus, nothing more vividly demonstrates the need for organizations like the Washington Council on Economic Education and its national affiliate, Economics America, than the November 30 - December 3 events in Seattle’s streets and failures in its Convention Center.
If improved economic education can bring wider recognition of just one simple reality, that the greatest cost of a trade barrier is born by the country imposing it, trade barriers will disappear. So will the need for a World Trade Organization. |
Rating U.S. compliance with WTO rulings generally:
| Quote: | Ambassador Allgeier: Thank you very much for joining us today. We simply wanted to make a few comments about the Trade Policy Review of the United States which was held on Wednesday and today.
This is the eighth Trade Policy Review of the United States. We've been reviewed more than any other country. There was very great interest in the Trade Policy Review. As you know, the process is one in which the government produces a report, the Secretariat produces a report, and then members are invited to ask questions in writing.
For all of the questions that are submitted two weeks prior to the review, the country under review is meant to respond in writing by the time that the review begins. Frankly, this is the first time, as I understand it, that a country under review actually met that deadline by responding to the questions. We had an enormous number of questions. I think we had more than 600 questions in writing to the U.S. |
Previous year's results:
2004 Trade Policy Review
The United States in the World Economy
By Thomas Prusa
Volume 28, Number 9,
September, 2005
| Quote: | Many of the findings of the seventh Trade Policy Review of the United States are similar to those reached in earlier reviews: the US is unanimously acknowledged as having an open and transparent system; the US economy has remained amongst the world's most competitive, and has continued to support global growth by keeping its import market largely open.
This review finds, however, that the US has developed a disturbing pattern of non-compliance with WTO rules. During the period of review the United States enacted policies, most notably the infamous Byrd Amendment and the 2001–02 steel safeguard action, that were found to be clear violations of its WTO obligations. Despite these and other such findings, the United States has obstinately refused to bring its domestic statutes in line with WTO rules. In addition, in recent years the United States’ aggressive pursuit of regional and bilateral initiatives has led many Members to question whether the United States is committed to the multilateral approach espoused by the WTO. Overall, despite the US's many virtues, Member countries expressed concern that the US's stated leadership of and commitment to the WTO is not matched by its actions. (Abstract of article, pgs. 1263-1275) |
So what's the problem?
Congress Research Service (CRS)
Dispute Settlement in the World Trade Organization: An Overview
By Legislative Attorney Jeanne J. Grimmett, American Law Division
Aug. 17/05
| Quote: | | Adoption of panel and appellate reports finding that a U.S. measure violates a WTO agreement does not give the reports direct legal effect in this country. Thus, federal law would not be affected until Congress or the Executive Branch, as the case may be, changed the law or administrative measure at issue. Procedures for Executive Branch compliance with adverse WTO decisions are set out in §§ 123 and 129 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA). The DSU generally applies to disputes involving state and local measures covered by WTO agreements and Members are obligated to ensure compliance at this level (DSU, Art. 22.9 and n.17). Only the federal government may bring suit against a state or locality to declare its law invalid because of inconsistency with a WTO agreement; private remedies based on WTO obligations are also precluded by statute (URAA, § 102(b),(c)). (From WTO Dispute Settlement and U.S. Law at p. 5 of 6) |
U.S. trade position during the Bush administration:
Link to this entry
http://www.pokerpulse.com/legal/viewtopic.php?p=369#369
Last edited by legal on Tue Feb 03, 2009 5:46 pm; edited 29 times in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
legal
Site Admin
Joined: 18 Aug 2004
Posts: 510
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
legal
Site Admin
Joined: 18 Aug 2004
Posts: 510
|
| Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 11:20 am Post subject: |
|
|
From Gambling Warriors:
The Fog of War
Eleven lessons from the life of Robert S. McNamara
DVD
Featuring music by Philip Glass that actually added something of value to this powerful testimonial
| Quote: | Lesson #8: Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning.
McNamara: We are the strongest nation in the world today and I do not believe we should ever apply economic, political or military power unilaterally. If we had followed that rule in Viet Nam, we wouldn't have been there. None of our allies supported us - not Japan, not Britain, Germany or France. If we can't persuade nations of comparable values of the merit of our cause, we better reexamine our reasoning. |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/legal/viewtopic.php?p=375#375
Last edited by legal on Mon Feb 02, 2009 1:36 pm; edited 5 times in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
legal
Site Admin
Joined: 18 Aug 2004
Posts: 510
|
| Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 11:15 am Post subject: |
|
|
Fortune
Magazine Subscription
Susan Schwab
AHOY! Can this woman save free trade?
With protectionism on the rise and the President a lame duck, the movement toward open markets may seem stalled. But the U.S. trade rep has channelled a personal tragedy into a nonstop crusade to keep globalization alive. Will she succeed?
By Nina Easton
Oct. 1/07
| Quote: | ... She said yes to an offer to become deputy U.S. trade representative in 2005, then was promoted in 2006 to trade ambassador, on the eve of the breakdown of the latest round of World Trade Organization talks in Geneva. Determined to salvage the talks, Schwab traveled 87,000 miles in three months to try to piece the negotiations back together. "I'm enough of an economist that I really felt I was creating wealth, helping people, creating U.S. exports (emphasis added) - all the things I believe in," she says. Whether negotiating over trade in autos or darkmeat chicken parts, Schwab played well in the nuances of trade disputes. "These specific line items mean someone does or does not make a sale," she says.
... Inside her office next door to the White House, a stunned and angry Schwab began crafting a three-page letter to (House Speaker Nancy) Pelosi, objecting to the "unprecedented new preconditions on our trading partners" Peru and Panama. The letter ended with a passionate defense of free trade.
"American workers, farmers, consumers, and businesses cannot afford for Congress to hang up a CLOSED FOR BUSINESS sign," she wrote. The letter, Schwab told me a month later, was cathartic. It also forced her to examine the Democrats' press release, which appeared carefully nuanced to keep labor satisfied while moving free trade forward. "They appear to be moving the goal posts," she says. "But they are saying the right things [privately]. Let's see if they deliver." (emphasis added)
It is early August, and we are talking over coffee at the Hay-Adams Hotel, across the street from the White House. A relentlessly upbeat Schwab insists on blending realism with optimism on the WTO talks, too, which have had their own set of twists and turns. This fall could be "the end of the road," she says of the six-year WTO session to lower trade barriers. "If it doesn't work this time around, we're probably done for now." And then there's the most controversial trade issue of all -- "fast-track" authority for the President, which gives foreign nations the reassurance that their trade deals with the President won't be picked apart by Congress and special interests. (Under fast-track, which expired in June, Congress can only vote up or down, not amend.) Labor leaders and their Democratic allies are reluctant to renew fast-track authority for Bush, though (Charlie) Rangel appears willing to reconsider if there's a WTO deal. (-- p. 178) |
Former USTR planning director blasts the U.S. over its handling of the trade dispute with Antigua:
| Quote: | Associated Press
US fights WTO over Internet gambling
By Jim Abrams
Nov. 20/07
| Quote: | ... Eight House Democrats, including Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, on Monday wrote U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab expressing surprise that the USTR had moved on the issue without consulting with Congress on possible solutions. The lawmakers said they viewed the administration action "as a drastic step which could have significant consequences for the entire WTO system." ...
Specifically, former USTR director of policy planning Naotaka Matsukata told the same committee, China and Russia would welcome a means of reducing its commitments required as part of accession to the WTO.
"A global trading order doesn't fall all at once, but one rule at a time," he said. ... The issue, Matsukata said in an interview, is not one of legality but of discrimination against foreign providers such as Antigua and, to a far larger scale, the EU. He noted that negotiations are now under way, with the WTO set to make a decision on the Antigua case at the end of this month and a mid-December deadline for others. While Antigua is asking for $3.4 billion in compensation, the United States has offered about $500,000, he said. (emphasis added)
USTR press secretary Stephen Norton said in a statement that the administration would review the letter from the lawmakers and "work with Congress and our trading partners to address this matter."
... Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla., is promoting a more narrow bill to make betting on skill games such as poker and chess legal. |
|
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/legal/viewtopic.php?p=407#407
Last edited by legal on Mon Feb 02, 2009 1:36 pm; edited 5 times in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
legal
Site Admin
Joined: 18 Aug 2004
Posts: 510
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
legal
Site Admin
Joined: 18 Aug 2004
Posts: 510
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
legal
Site Admin
Joined: 18 Aug 2004
Posts: 510
|
| Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 5:19 pm Post subject: |
|
|
... and the U.S. will probably legalize/regulate online gambling, anyway!
Sys.Con Media
Panelists at European Think Tank Take Aim at U.S. Policy on Gaming Trade Dispute
$100 Billion In Potential Benefits for European Union Industries Because of U.S. Policy "Mistake" At WTO In Antigua Case
By PR Newswire
Oct. 10/07
| Quote: | Panelists at a trade forum held at a leading European think tank today leveled harsh criticism at the U.S. government for abandoning its commitments to the World Trade Organization over the gaming industry, claiming the decision threatens the credibility of the WTO itself and could lead to a chain reaction of similar withdrawals by other nations.
The Centre for the New Europe, a leading Brussels-based think tank with a special interest in open trade, focused the forum on a burgeoning trade clash between the U.S. and Europe over Internet gaming. According to analysts, the U.S. could be liable for up to $100 billion in trade concessions to European industries because of illegal discriminatory trade restrictions placed by the U.S. against European gaming operators. The amount of the dispute is the largest in the history of the WTO, and the U.S. withdrawal of its commitments represents the first time that has happened in WTO history. The withdrawal alarmed the speakers, all of whom specialize in trade issues.
"The U.S. decision is a major threat to a rules-based international trading system," said Nao Matsukata, the former Director of Policy Planning for the office of the U.S. Trade Representative. "If more countries follow the U.S. lead and do the same thing, the entire WTO system could implode and that would be extremely dangerous for U.S. economic interests and for free trade generally," he added.
"Part of what makes the U.S. such a formidable opponent in international negotiations is its credibility," Matsukata said. "That credibility is now at stake for the U.S. government not just in the trade area but in foreign relations generally." Matsukata, one of the most respected trade specialists in the U.S., also called the U.S. policy decision a "mistake not backed by any logical explanation of which I am aware". (emphasis added)
... "The WTO[/b][/i] has worked largely to the advantage of the U.S.," said Sallie James, a trade specialist at the Cato Institute who also spoke on the panel. "Any action the U.S. takes to undermine the integrity of the system is extremely dangerous to U.S. economic interests and to free trade generally."
Lode Van Den Hende, a trade lawyer at Herbert Smith in Brussels, criticized the U.S. for prosecuting foreign online gaming companies while letting domestic online gaming interests operate with impunity. "This is absolute discrimination against foreign operators that the WTO has found to be illegal," he said. "It is exactly the kind of practice that the WTO was set up to eliminate, and now the U.S. is violating this very basic principle that it fought hard to put in place at the inception of the organization."
... The panelists agreed that in the near future the U.S. likely would have a regulated, licensed, and non-discriminatory system in place for Internet gaming that would bring the U.S. back into compliance with W.T.O. rules. (emphasis added) Gaming industry representatives believe a legislative bill in the U.S. Congress sponsored by Rep. Barney Frank - which essentially creates a regulatory system for online gaming - could alleviate their concerns about market access and discriminatory prosecutions. ... The European Union has developed the world's leading Internet gaming businesses and is considered to have a strong lead over the U.S. in this sector, with operations in the U.K., Gibraltar, Malta, Austria, Bulgaria, Ireland, Estonia, and Sweden, employing an estimated 15,000 workers. ... The $100 billion U.S. gaming market is the largest in the world, employing more than 350,000 people and generates billions of dollars of tax revenues.
The online gaming dispute also has broader implications for Internet commerce. It is the first WTO case supporting a small country's right and ability to create a globally important business sector on the Internet, as Antigua claims it was doing with online gaming.
The WTO will most likely deal with other Internet cases soon, as U.S. search giant Google has suggested it will press a claim against China for violating the WTO by barring Chinese users from certain Internet sites using the Google search function. (emphasis added) |
Link to this entry
http://www.pokerpulse.com/legal/viewtopic.php?p=692#692 |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
FAQ 
Search 
Memberlist 
Usergroups
Profile 
Log in to check your private messages 
Log in 
