Spring Broke.

Item request has been placed! ×
Item request cannot be made. ×
loading   Processing Request
  • Additional Information
    • Subject Terms:
    • Abstract:
      American negotiators at the an international trade conference in Cancun, Mexico, refused to eliminate subsidies to U.S. farmers, making it difficult for emerging nation's to compete. For years, the United States has told West African nations -- struggling to survive against disease, famine, desertification, and debt crises--that their pleas for foreign assistance are misplaced. In a farce worthy of "Monty Python," America's trade negotiators in Cancun last week walked away from a global trade deal that might have given Third World farmers a free market for their exports. In recent years, as production in West Africa and other low-cost producers rose, and world prices for cotton fell, America's handful of cotton producers sought and obtained increased subsidies and market protection. And, because American cotton-growers receive several thousand dollars per farm via direct subsidies and market protection, American consumers unwittingly pay higher taxes to retain this rigged system. Then, in May 2003, Mali, Chad, Burkina Faso, and Benin called for a phasing out the protectionism holding them in their poverty trap, pitting the ten million impoverished farmers in these nations -- and the American consumers who would buy their high-quality and inexpensive cotton -- against the few thousand well-heeled and well-organized American cotton growers.