GATT tariffs locked former colonies into exporting raw materials only

Evidence

Perhaps the most important is GATT, which in 1995 morphed into the World Trade Organization, or WTO. GATT was, as its name implies, a mechanism for making agreements among countries about trade and especially about “tariffs”—or the taxes a country sets on goods that are imported from other countries. But, based on the assumptions of enclosure, the “agreements” were dictated by the Western industrial coun - tries to benefit their own industrial economies. For example, Tanzania grew a fiber called sisal, which makes good rope, and Tanzania wanted to build rope factories. But tariff policies under GATT allowed the rich countries to put high tariffs on imported rope, which made the price of Tanzanian rope too high to sell. So Tanzania had to give up making rope and just sell the raw material—sisal—to the rich countries. Rope, of course, is much more profitable than sisal, and so the rich countries got richer while Tanzania stayed poor. — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education, 1390

Categorization

• DEFINE: Concrete case of the tariff mechanism a teacher could lift straight into a lesson plan; also defines GATT’s actual function.
• XREF: connects to: Colonial economics assumed colonies should export raw materials, not industrialize — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1343; The colonial pact forbade African industrialisation and monopolised colonial trade — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 62

Broader Connections

• Colonial economics assumed colonies should export raw materials, not industrialize #expands (0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1343
• The colonial pact forbade African industrialisation and monopolised colonial trade #expands (0.80) — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 62