ustries) from moving over the border to Mexico and running the film industry from there, hiring Mexican workers for all, or most, off-screen jobs. Software, another area where the U.S. exports far more than it imports, is once again subject to linguistic and cultural pressures. While it's hard to imagine foreign software taking significant share away from Quicken or Microsoft, it is easier to believe that a foreign company could displace Netscape or America Online (which is both an intellectual property company and a service company). The agriculture and dairy products controversy touches primarily on the question of food safety versus efficiency. How much should a country be allowed to set its own food safety standards? Both of these issues have already been hugely affected by NAFTA and GATT. Despite the complaints of many environmentalists that our laws are not strong enough, the United States probably has the strongest pesticide and chemical restrictions for food and food products in the world. Under existing world trade treaties, other countries cannot be prevented from bringing in their produce and meat, which can freely contain substances banned in this country as carcinogens (such as the pesticide DDT, or bovine growth hormone, or BGH, in beef and milk). If it is legal to sell these products in the United States, how can we continue to tell our own farmers and ranchers that they may not use them? And isn’t it the government’s job to protect Americans from ingesting them? Presumably, DDT-free or BGH-free products can be labeled as such--although if such labeling carries a connotation of "American-and-therefore-better," it would probably not be acceptable under the WTO guidelines. Of course, many consumers will buy the cheaper or nicer-looking choice at the supermarket, regardless of what's on the label. While some would call this unacceptable danger to the public, others would call it a simple free choice between two k...
