Notes from the Right-Wing: Trade Deficit

I'm Joeverkill, and these are some notes from the Right-Wing.

The World Trade Organization is advising U.S. consumers to save their money, even as the U.S. government is trying its damnedest to get them to spend it. From the AFP:

Families in the United States have to save more if the country is to reduce a deficit in payments with the rest of the world, the World Trade Organisation said on Monday.
In a review of US trade policy, the WTO said that if consumers saved more and spent less, then there would be less demand for imported goods.
That would help to reduce a deficit on the balance of payments into and out of the country, it said.

I've always been more than a bit wary of the WTO. I'm an isolationist at heart, and I've always been suspicious of the WTO's push to liberalize the flow of goods and currencies between borders. However, they're raising a good point here. We're pushing ourselves into a deep hole of debt and deficit. In my own opinion, the U.S.'s import/export ratio has been too high for years now. The federal government is telling us to spend more, but if Americans are just spending that money on imported goods (which they mostly are), it's the economic equivalent of throwing shit on a shitfire.

As per usual, though, the WTO displayed a nearly sickening level of duplicity by
warn[ing] against any pressures for protective barriers to reduce imports, saying the world's largest economy should work instead to expand its exports to balance the account.

Okay, so the WTO doesn't want to piss off all the nations that export to the U.S. -- not necessarily the high road, but it makes sense -- but then they have the balls to rule against the U.S. in its complaint against India's high tariffs on imported alcohol products.

In the conclusion of its ruling, the WTO's dispute panel said that the United States has "failed to establish that the additional duty on alcoholic liquor is inconsistent" with India's WTO commitments.
The US had filed the complaint against India in May 2007, claiming that additional duties on alcoholic beverages were as high as 550 percent of the value of the product.

I'm not saying I oppose India's high alcohol tariffs. In fact, I support the right of sovereign nations to regulate trade. But is no one going to call the WTO out on this one? They shake their fingers at the United States, admonishing us for having too high an import/export ratio, then tell us not to raise tariffs, then support a country with already astronomically high tariffs in a decision that effectively restricts the U.S.'s ability to export. Why do we put up with stuff like this?

I'm Joeverkill, and this has been Notes from the Right-Wing.