It seems negotiations between Saudi Arabia and the United States paving the way for the Kingdom’s accession to the World Trade Organization have hit a brick wall over American insistence that the Kingdom change its current policy on gas sales. As it is, local consumers can buy gas for less than the fixed international market price.
The American delegation to the negotiations have described the pricing of gas as the stumbling block that hinders progress and conclusion of the series of bilateral negotiations and say unless the double pricing policy is abandoned, the Kingdom will not be able to join the WTO.
The European Union, too, seems to be applying some kind of pressure on the Kingdom for the same reasons. Yet according to the International Herald Tribune, both the US and the EU continue to provide massive subsidies to their industries and agriculture.
The US provides indirect support for the aircraft manufacturer Boeing through the lucrative sales contracts for Boeing planes. It also provides generous subsidies to American cotton farmers to the tune of $3.5 billion annually. As a result, the US now hogs 40 percent of the world cotton market while denying poor counties the opportunity to sell their cotton, thus further compounding their problems of unemployment and poverty in the Third World.
As for the EU, its countries are paying 3.3 euros for every one euro of sugar to subsidize European exports of beet sugar. Beet is grown at much lower costs in developing countries, but these countries cannot compete with the heavily subsidized European sugar; another problem that adds to unemployment, poverty and other woes of developing nations.
Japan, meanwhile, imposes tariffs of up to 500 percent on imported rice. It is countries that heavily depend on one kind of export, like Cuba — where sugar is the main source for earning hard currency — that are hardest hit by such policies.
Rich countries apply glaring double standard but refuse to admit it. This is especially the case when considering taxes levied by the US and European countries on petroleum. The taxes, which are not part of any WTO agreements, far exceed the revenues generated by producing countries.
