On August 10, the US Department of Commerce concluded an investigation of the Canadian soft lumber industry. DOC decided that Canadian lumber is receiving subsidies from the Canadian government, which give the industry an unfair advantage over their American competitors. Therefore, the DOC has announced a new 19.31% tariff on Canadian soft lumber (mostly the lumber from Quebec). The tariff is retroactive to May 20. It's quite the scandal in Canada, but there's damn near silence on the issue here in the US.

But wait a minute. What about NAFTA? What about the all-healing powers of Free Trade? Don't tariffs on another country's products violate the rules of globalization? Maybe the US should first take its case to an international trade court, like the WTO. Maybe a trade court would find in favor of the US and make Canada stop these subsidies, if Canada is indeed subsidizing its timber industry.

The US already did. Took Canada to court three times. Lost all three times.

Since no court recognizes the US' rationale for the tariff, the US has placed a barrier to trade between itself and Canada--violation of free trade, plain and simple. And it's not a trivial gesture, the effects of this enormous tariff are already being felt. Large soft lumber companies based in British Columbia are already discussing layoffs of thousands of employees.

But wait, there's more.

On August 20, the WTO brought back another court decision. This one was in favor of the EU, against the US. The WTO found that the US Foreign Sales Corporation law (which gave tax breaks to corporations that use off-shore subsidiaries to export their goods) was an illegal subsidy (the kind that trade courts found that Canada was NOT giving to its timber industry).

Meaning that the US is violating international law regarding free trade. The EU has said that unless the US alters its tax credits, it will seek $4-5 billion in damages. US Trade Representatives hope that they can negotiate with the EU for a settlement that will avert the steep payment.

Add to these examples the fact that all "free trade" agreements allow for extremely un-free protectionism of intellectual property (patents and copyrights), and the news of a new case brought to the WTO by 23 nations against the US "Byrd Amendment," and you'll see a pattern.

The US does not care about free trade. Never has. The only thing the US has cared about is winning. And under the US-defined version of free trade, it usually does win. And when the US finds that it (or corporations within its borders) may lose out, they simply ignore the rules.

I'm not writing this to say "the US should stop the hypocrisy and follow its own rules." I'm writing this to say that the US does not have rules.

This nation sees rules as sets of restrictions that we can sometimes trick other countries into following. Nothing more, nothing less. All of the talk of "free trade" and globalization are just schemes, attempts to trick other nations into following rules that will deluge the coffers of US corporations with money.

If we can say anything positive about the Bush administration (and we can't), it's that W's regime is making the US' contempt for rules a little more out in the open.