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4/3/2006
Harkin Urges USTR to Examine Australian Wheat Board’s Unfair Trade Practices
WASHINGTON, DC – In a letter to the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR)
Rob Portman, Tom Harkin (D-IA) today urged the Bush Administration to
investigate whether the Australian Wheat Board (AWB) has violated U.S.
trade law or World Trade Organization’s (WTO) rules and to take
enforcement actions if such violations have occurred. The letter
also urges USTR to limit monopolies in agricultural trading through WTO
negotiations. Harkin, ranking Democrat on the Senate Agriculture
Committee, was joined by Senators Max Baucus (D-MT), Kent Conrad
(D-ND), Byron Dorgan (D-ND), and Ken Salazar (D-CO) in writing to
Ambassador Portman.
“U.S. farmers should not have to compete with foreign governments in
international markets,” Harkin said. “AWB’s violations of the UN
Oil for Food Program show a clear willingness to break international
rules. This puts American wheat farmers at a distinct
disadvantage.”
The UN’s Oil for Food Program was designed to assist hungry Iraqis
while the country was under trade restrictions. Iraq was allowed
to sell some of its oil in order to purchase food for hungry Iraqis
while it was under trade embargo. A United Nation’s (UN) audit of
AWB’s participation in its Oil for Food Program revealed that it
secured wheat contracts by providing the Iraqi government roughly $220
million in kickbacks to the regime of Saddam Hussein. Harkin’s
letter today urges USTR to examine whether AWB’s kickbacks constitute
an unfair trade practice under U.S. trade law or WTO rules and take
appropriate enforcement action.
Monopoly control over a country’s agricultural exports, as AWB has over
Australian wheat, generally distorts global markets. The letter urges
this matter to be considered through ongoing negotiations in the WTO.
“The whole point of the WTO negotiations is to create more open and
transparent markets,” Harkin said. “AWB’s monopoly on wheat trade
prevents that from happening.”
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