{"id":20940,"date":"2015-05-11T11:20:16","date_gmt":"2015-05-11T18:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/?p=20940"},"modified":"2015-05-12T15:24:46","modified_gmt":"2015-05-12T22:24:46","slug":"zero-for-zero-should-be-on-agenda-for-brazil-leaders-u-s-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/zero-for-zero-should-be-on-agenda-for-brazil-leaders-u-s-visit\/","title":{"rendered":"Zero-for-Zero should be on agenda for Brazil leader\u2019s U.S. visit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Chuck<\/a>(Chuck Muth) – In a recent Reuters story, Alonso Soto noted that on an upcoming visit to Washington, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff\u2019s staff intends to launch complaints about alleged U.S. crop subsidies with Obama administration officials.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrazilian authorities expect to have more evidence of (market) distortions by early next year, to challenge the United States,\u201d Soto reported.\u00a0 \u201cIn the meantime, officials say Brasilia will seek to press the United States to be more transparent about its subsidies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.<\/p>\n

In an extensive report<\/a> released last fall, DTB Associates, LLP noted\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cOverall government support for Brazilian agriculture has mushroomed over the past decade. The government has raised support prices for a range of commodities and increased funding for other programs as well.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The report notes that Brazil\u2019s violations of crop subsidy limits established by the World Trade Organization (WTO) \u201chave gone unrecognized due in part to the complexity and in some cases overlapping nature of the programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report further notes that Brazil provides a multitude of \u201csubsidized agricultural credits\u201d through various programs that are \u201cvery complex and non-transparent.\u201d\u00a0 In addition, \u201cBrazil operates a wide range of tax measures, some of which may have the effect of an export subsidy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Soto reports that Brazil \u201cplans to apply pressure on Washington by questioning its farm program at the World Trade Organization\u2019s agricultural committee.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to act multilaterally at the WTO to reduce those\u201d alleged U.S. crop subsidies, an unnamed Brazilian official told Reuters.<\/p>\n

On this, we can agree.<\/p>\n

Brazil is the world\u2019s #1 producer and exporter of sugar, propped up by a series of long-established and extensive government subsidies.<\/p>\n

A congressional resolution proposed by Rep. Ted Yoho of Florida would zero out all U.S. government support programs in return for Brazil simultaneously zeroing out all of its government support programs.\u00a0 This multilateral zero-for-zero policy would be administered under the auspices of the WTO.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s hope zero-for-zero is on the agenda for President Rousseff\u2019s visit in June.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mr. Muth is president of Citizen Outreach and the publisher of www.NevadaNewsandViews.com<\/a>. He personally blogs at www.MuthsTruths.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Chuck Muth) – In a recent Reuters story, Alonso Soto noted that on an upcoming visit to Washington, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff\u2019s staff intends to launch complaints about alleged U.S. crop subsidies with Obama administration officials. \u201cBrazilian authorities expect to have more evidence of (market) distortions by early next year, to challenge the United States,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20940"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20940"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20950,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20940\/revisions\/20950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}