The US is no trade saint
American Institute in Taiwan Director Douglas Paal is correct about the benefits of lowering tariffs ("Working toward a tariff-free world," Dec. 16, p. 8), but his contentions that the US is leading the way towards trade liberalization and that US trade policy is in part motivated by concern for the world's poor are misleading and disingenuous.
Again and again, the US has amply demonstrated that its trade policy is determined not by economics, compassion or even common sense, but by domestic political considerations. The administration which appointed Paal to his post has, in the past year alone, established new barriers to foreign steel to protect an inefficient industry in two swing states, larded out US$180 billion to subsidize agribusiness and is now engaging in semantic contortions to keep out catfish from Vietnam.
Trade liberalization is important to Taiwan and the rest of the world.
However, the US is squan-dering its ability to lead on this issue and opening itself up to charges of rank hypocrisy. Zero is a good number for tarriffs, not American credibility.
Jonathan Brody
Taipei
Where's the real news?
I find it disturbing that the local media has seen fit devote so much time to the tangled and chaotic private lives of Sophie Wang (王筱嬋) and DPP Legislator Cheng Yu-chen (鄭余鎮). Who cares about their ridiculous games? Why does the media offer them a stage on which to perform? They set a bad example and look childish and stupid.
Is this focus on meaningless gossip and sexual shenanigans in the mainstream media part of some government-media conspiracy to blind people with worthless information and make the people stupid?
There are more more pressing issues that could and should be discussed in the media ahead of gossip and stories of who is having sex with who behind who's back -- record unemployment, the fact that you have to take a diversion through Hong Kong to get to China by air, the issue of political/economic integration with China, gangsterism and why well-fed and comfortable teenagers are "depressed," ... it goes on.
What is the point of having a free and diverse media if it just produces rubbish?
Kev Lax
Taipei
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