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HELMS WEIGHS IN AGAINST WTO
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
But Dole and Gingrich Back It

Sen. Jesse Helms (R.-N.C.), the incoming chairman of the Foreign Relations
Committee, has joined in with those Republicans who have decided to make
Bill Clinton's life less comfortable.  Barely had the election outcome been
announced when Helms, according to informed sources, said he was going to
bury the President's choice for ambassador to Panama, Robert Pastor, the
architect of Jimmy Carter's disastrous Latin American policy (see Human
Events, June 24, page 3).

Then Helms, in a press conference in Raleigh, N.C., announced that under his
leadership, the committee was intensely interested in reviewing the
following issues:

* The "so-called" foreign aid program that has "spent an estimated $2
trillion of the American taxpayers' money, much of it going down foreign
ratholes, to countries that constantly oppose us in the United Nations,
and many which reject concepts of freedom."

* Evaluation of why the Foreign Service "should operate under different
personnel rules from all other of our government's civilian personnel."

* Reevaluation of U.S. relations with "that long-time nemesis of millions
of Americans, the United Nations...which costs the American taxpayers
billions of dollars."

* The administration's effort to regain the Golan Heights for Syria.
"Syria doesn't want peace with Israel," said Helms.  "What Syria wants is
the Golan Heights, plus, of course, access to the American taxpayers'
money.  Congress needs to get off the dime and demand a reassessment of
the entire Middle East peace process so that we can know, in advance,
what our commitments are likely to be."

REPUDIATED CONGRESS SHOULDN'T VOTE

Even more alarming for President Clinton, moreover, was the forceful
November 14 letter the North Carolinian sent the President in connection
with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).  The
controversial GATT implementation bill (S 2467), wrote Helms, "is
scheduled to be raced through a lame-duck session of the U.S. Senate on a
very unwise 'fast-track' schedule allowing no amendments and no motions
of any kind, and with an up-or-down vote automatically occurring at the
conclusion of only 20 hours of debate."

Then Helms made his request: "I implore you to inform the Senate that you
are willing for consideration of the GATT implementation bill to be
delayed until very early in 1995, thereby permitting meaningful public
hearings at which significant witnesses on both sides can be heard."

Helms also added this not very veiled threat: If the President would put
off GATT, this would have an "exceedingly positive effect" on Helms'
willingness to let the administration's foreign policy positions be
"considered both fairly and fully."

As Human Events readers are aware, many conservatives are extremely wary
of the new GATT, with its World Trade Organization (WTO) component.  So
alarmed, in fact, have been a number of Senate Republicans over the
agreement that, along with Helms, Senators Strom Thurmond (S.C.), Larry
Pressler (S.D.) and Larry Craig (Idaho) introduced a "sense of the Senate"
resolution during the summer calling for creation of a joint task force
of administration officials and congressmen to determine whether the new
agreement should be considered a treaty needing two-thirds Senate approval
before its provisions could be enacted.

(The resolution never got anywhere, and thus the implementation of the
new GATT's provisions will need just a majority vote in the House and 60
votes - seven less than required for the ratification of a treaty - in
the Senate to waive the Budget Act of 1974 in order to bring it up for a
vote.)

The senators, however, noted that 42 state attorneys general have warned
that the 123-member WTO could run roughshod over state or local laws that
it deems illegally interfere with international trade.  As a party to the
WTO, the attorneys general said, the United States "would be obligated to
change local, state and federal laws determined by a secret WTO panel to
be 'GATT-illegal,' or face perpetual trade sanctions."

GINGRICH ADMITS WTO POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS

The senators also stressed that, unlike the current GATT agreement, the
"United States will have only one vote and no veto rights in the WTO.
The single-vote structure will give the European Union the capacity to
outvote the United States 12 to 1.  It will also give the island of St.
Kitts, with a population of 60,000, the same voting power as the United
States.  The United States will have less than 1% of the total vote, but
will be assessed almost 20% of the total cost of operating the
WTO....State officials have no standing before WTO tribunals even if a
state law is challenged as an illegal trade barrier."

What is somewhat astonishing is that the two Republican leaders of the
new Congress - Sen. Robert Dole (Kan.) and Rep. Newt Gingrich (Ga.) -
favor GATT and the WTO, despite major reservations, and want the current,
lame-duck Congress to vote on the legislation when it returns in less
than two weeks.

Incoming Speaker Gingrich, though now backing the new GATT, earlier this
year said he was worried that the trade organization would become a
"Third World-dominated, dictatorship-dominated system" that could exert
authority over U.S. economic policies and infringe on national sovereignty.
Gingrich declared, "I'm for world trade, but I'm against world government."

Even when he had clearly shifted to a favorable view, he acknowledged the
WTO's dangers.  Sitting in on House Ways and Means Committee hearings on
the WTO earlier this year, Gingrich noted that "[T]his is not just
another trade agreement.  This is adopting something which twice, once in
the 1940s and once in the 1950s, the United States Congress rejected.  I
am not even saying we should reject it; I, in fact, lean toward it, but I
think we have to be very careful, because it is a very big transfer of
power."

Indeed, as we noted in our July 1 issue, Gingrich likened GATT to the
"Maastricht" treaty governing much of Europe, by which individual states
have surrendered an unprecedented degree of economic sovereignty.  We
need "to be honest about the fact," Gingrich allowed, "that we are
transferring from the United States at a practical level significant
authority to a new organization.  This is a transformational moment.  I
would feel better if the people who favor this would just be honest about
the scale of change."

If even supporters of the new GATT are admitting its potentially vast
dangers to the United States, what's wrong with Helm's suggestion that
the liberal Congress so overwhelmingly repudiated by the American people
on November 8 should be cut out of the voting picture entirely?

[end]

Source: Human Events
     Inside Washington
     November 25, 1994


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