Trade

file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/After%20Crash/School/School%20Winter%202015/INTL%20445/Reserach%20Paper%20INTL%20445/Why%20the%20deal%20to%20pay%20Brazil%20$300%20million%20just%20to%20keep%20U.S.%20cotton%20subsidies%20is%20bad%20for%20the%20WTO,%20poor%20countries,%20and%20U.S.%20taxpayers%20-%20The%20Washington%20Post.html

This article shows how the WTO, supposedly meant to equalize and liberalize trade, is limited in its purpose by its own rules. The US has exported subsidized cotton for decades, but recently this has been in violation of several free trade treaties. Instead of dropping the subsidies, which would allow countries like Brazil and Mali to benefit from increases in their cotton export prices, the US uses a loop hole in WTO law. Any member state of the WTO can only be brought to the ICJ for violating WTO laws or a treaty by another county who has signed the same treaty and has membership to the ICJ. Because few countries want to go through this, only the countries who are adversely effected would ever attempt to take the US before the ICJ; namely Brazil and Mali. To avoid this, the US has settled with the government of Brazil, agreeing to pay $300 million rather than end its subsidies.