Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) has managed to win seven co-sponsors so far for a resolution that he introduced earlier this month calling on the United States to withdraw from the World Trade Organization, a spokesman for the congressman said March 24.
Responding to the congressman's call to co-sponsor the measure, issued in a letter March 10, have been Reps. Helen Chenoweth (R-Idaho), Duncan L. Hunter (R-Calif.), Robert Ney (R-Ohio), Gene Taylor (D-Miss.), John J. Duncan (R-Tenn.), Charlie Norwood (R-Ga.), and Jack Metcalf (R-Wash.).
"When the U.S. joined the WTO, 146 members of Congress stood up and voted No," Paul said in the letter. "Now that we have seen the record of the WTO, it is time for a majority of the House to get out."
He said that the European Union was continuing to ignore dispute-settlement rulings handed down by the WTO, and that, more importantly, the WTO had ruled against the United States in areas ranging from environmental protection to taxation.
"The WTO is not pro-trade," Paul wrote. "We are not going to sit back and let the WTO set tax, trade, environmental, and labor policy for the United States simply because this administration trusts bureaucrats in Switzerland more than it trusts the American people and their representatives here in Congress."
U.S. law--specifically, Section 125 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (P.L. 103-465)--requires Congress to act on the resolution within 90 legislative days of receiving a mandated report from the administration on U.S. participation in the WTO, which was started Jan. 1, 1995, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
The administration submitted the report to Congress March 2.
By Gary G. Yerkey
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