Cotton Picking Subsidies
Those out-of-control free-market fanatics in the Bush administration fight the World Trade Organization in defense of subsidies to cotton farmers. As the Washington Times reports:
The WTO in September largely backed a charge by Brazil that U.S. payments to cotton farmers skew competition, lower global cotton prices and essentially rob Brazilian farmers of income.
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Brazil expected the appeal. The country maintains that U.S. cotton producers received $12.47 billion in subsidies from August 1999 to July 2003, spurring overproduction and lowering world prices by almost 13 percent.
The South American nation, a rising agricultural powerhouse, also has won a WTO case against European Union sugar subsidies as part of an assault on rich countries' farm subsidies. The European Union is appealing.
The world's wealthiest countries combined paid $257 billion in support to their farmers in 2003, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said. The 25-nation European Union doled out the most at $121.4 billion, followed by the United States at $38.9 billion.
U.S. cotton subsidies reached $3.31 billion in 2002, the last year included in Brazil's case, and then declined to $2.89 billion in 2003 and an estimated $1.66 billion for 2004, according to U.S. Farm Service Agency data.
