United States' trade policy and the exportation of United States' culture

AutorBeverly I. Moran
CargoProfessor of Law and Professor of Sociology Vanderbilt University Law School, U.S.A.
Páginas21-44
21
United States’ trade policy and
the exportation of United States’ culture*
BEVERLY I. MORAN
SUMARIO: Introduction. 1. The United Status Trade Representative. 2. International Trade Nego-
tiations and the Cultural industry. 3. Trade in Services — the Film lndustry. 4. Film Production in
the United States, Australia, Canada and India. 5. Reports on Foreign Trade Barriers. 6. Government
Subsidies — What the USTR did no t cite as trade barriers. 7. Five United States’ A rguments for
Free Trade i n Film. 8. Australia , Canada and India reject negotiations on the internation al film
trade. 9. lt is Culture. 10. A Challenge for the USTR.
Introduction
The United States trade deficit grows bigger each year.1 What this means and what’s
to be done shifts from Democrat to Republican and from year to year.2 Nevertheless, since
World War II, the United States’ general position on international trade has answered the
trade question with unbridled support for free access to free markets.3
Now, the world economy is changing and our economy is changing. When the in-
ternational trade regime we work under began, cross border trade meant steel and oil and
cotton. Now, our Gross Domestic Product and employment comes from services as much
as anything else.4 Just as United States’ manufacturers looked overseas in the last century,
the United States support s the new US economy by being at the forefront of the push to
open foreign markets to services.5
* Originalme nte publicado en el Vanderbil t Journal of En tertainment La w & Practice, V anderbilt Law
School. Se reproduce con expresa autorización de la autora.
1 U.S. Trade Deficit Review Commi ssion, Final Report of the U.S. Trade Deficit: Cau ses, Consequences
and Recommendations for Action.” November 2000. Reports that the deficit grew from 30 billion in 1991
to $450 billion in 2000.
2 Much of t he Final Repo rt of the U.S . Trade Defic it Commission is divided in to sections c alled “The
Democratic View” or “The Republican View.”
3 “U.S. policy is based strongly on the p remise that the removal of barriers and distortions to global t rade
enhances higher wage job creation, incomes, living standards and growth potential, in the United States as
well as in the economies of our trade partners. World Trade Organization/Trade Policy Review - United
States 1996 at page 22.
4 Services include finance, telecommunications, law, accounting, advertising, engineering, education, health
care, energy and transportation to name a few.
5 According to the U nited States Trade Represen tative, eighty percent of Un ited States employment and
over sixty percent of Gross Domestic Product is based on services and cross border trade in services ac-
Anuario Andino de Derechos Intelectuales.
Año VII - N.º 7. Lima, 2011
22
ANUARIO ANDINO DE DERECHOS INTELECTUALES
MARCO JURÍDICO GENERAL
The Curb Center is dedicated to the study of the arts and pub lic policy. Not just the
high arts that concern Old Worl d European ministries of culture, but also the street arts,
the market arts, the arts that feed into our Gross Domestic Product and employment rates.
And not just the self-conscious public policy of a National Endowment for the Arts but also
the public policy that comes from other, seemingly culture neutral, government functions
as well. In the case of the United States trade deficit and our government’s policy to open
markets to services, we see culture and public policy combine when the principle of free
access to free markets opens up to include the cultural industry.
In the world of trade deficits, the general view is that selling abroad is desirable.6 In
this regard, the cultural industry tests our general understanding of trade.
If movies, books, music and videos are simply commodities, then thank god for Holly-
wood. It is one of the few United States’ industries that exports much more than it imports in
every market in every year throughout the world. The United States is not only one of the top
five producers of motion pictures in the world; it is the premier exporter of film worldwide.
But if these moving images, sounds and words are part of something called culture,
then perhaps there is a problem when United States’ movies, television, books, and music
fill up so much air time, take over so ma ny screens, and fill so many shelves that people
see and hear more U.S. than local product. How might we react if, for example, our chil-
dren saw fifty F rench movies each year and the television was filled with fore ign ideas
and words even in translation?
What about the moral questi ons that come when culture crosses borders? Is ther e a
right, perhaps even a duty, to protect local morals from exposure to sexual promiscuity, violence,
drug use, foreign religious beliefs or other matters depicted in United States’ media?
What about scarce local resources and the need to protect local industries and local
employment? Does it matter if there is no local Australian fil m industry, as was the case
for almost a decade in the late 1950s and early 1960s? Does it matter if United States’ films
fill so many screens that local producers have no outlets for t heir work? Why might the
loss of a local film industry be more disturbing for the United States and the host country
than the loss of some other local enterprise?
Where do markets f it into thi s scheme? I f someone wa nts to see more Sylvest er
Stallone and less traditional Balinese puppetry should governments interfere with market
counts for 22 percent of all international trade. United States Trade Representative “WTO Services Trade
Negotiations:
What is Trade in Services.” At http://www.ustr.gov/sectors/services/gat.pdf. According to a United States
Trade Representati ve Press Release dated Marc h 26, 2003: The service sect or comprises 80 percent of
U.S. employment and 64 per cent of U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP). According to a University of
Michigan study, a one-third cut in global barriers to trade in services would increase U.S. annual income
by $150 billion ($2,100 per American family of four). Total elimination of barriers in services would raise
U.S. annual income gain by over $450 billion ($6,380 per family of four).
6 According to the World Trade Organization’s October 1996 Tr ade Policy Review of the United Sta tes:
“The United States government has focused on trade policy as one of the principal tools available to it to
achieving the national economic goal of expanded domestic opportunity.”

Para continuar leyendo

Solicita tu prueba

VLEX utiliza cookies de inicio de sesión para aportarte una mejor experiencia de navegación. Si haces click en 'Aceptar' o continúas navegando por esta web consideramos que aceptas nuestra política de cookies. ACEPTAR