Dear Editor

Dear Editor:

I recently read Mr. Sun’s column regarding agriculture exports. I couldn’t agree with him more that exports are very important and that bilateral trade agreements are easier for two nations to come to terms than a group of nations. But, I think we have to look at the big picture of what multi-nation trade agreements would look like. Specifically, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP) are at the forefront.

Both the TPP and the T-TIP are very much like the European Union, United Nations, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and World Trade Organization (WTO). All these organizations are controlled by unelected, appointed bureaucrats who arbitrarily adopt rules and regulate through living, evolving agreements. They dictate who trades with whom and how much, depending on who they want to control that day. This is just one more step toward world government. 

Think back to our COOL (country of origin labeling) program. WTO said it was an unfair and illegal trade practice. Who are these folks who can dictate what happens in our country? Allowing them to do this strips our nation of its sovereignty and our citizens of self-government.

TPP is about so much more than trade. In fact, it has less to do with trade and more to do with establishing control over finance, education, immigration, labor and our own governance. Imagine a “partnership” with 12 nations, some of which have less than one percent of the gross domestic product of the United States, controlled by a dictator guilty of all manners of human rights violations and all having an equal vote in the TPP agreement. This has more to do with us, the U.S. “selling out” than trading.

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) has travelled to China and Japan to promote Wyoming products, specifically beef, soda ash and coal, as seen on page of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup (WyLR) on April 22, 2017. This is the type of bilateral trade effort we should put forth – solid trade agreements built one at a time so we establish relationships, trust and maintain equality and fairness in trade. If we fast-forward to the WyLR May 13, 2017 edition in the “Quick Bits,” we see that the White House has announced the resumption of U.S. beef imports to China. How about that? We’re using bilateral trade agreements while preserving our republic.  Now that the beef trade door is opened, can other products be negotiated, as well? American independence fueled by freedom. It does not get any better than that.

Thank you,

Mike Cheser

Kaycee