U.S. GIVES NOTICE OF UNFAIR TRADE BARRIERS

On the heels of the recent summit to establish free trade in the democratic nations of North and South America, President Bush announced last week that his administration will impose sanctions on countries around the world that have unreasonable trade barriers on U.S. products.

Good.

Specifically, the administration has listed 11 countries plus the European Union as having offending barriers ranging from copyright and patent infringement to restrictive tariffs or import bans.

Bush's action sets the stage for the filing of unfair trade cases for arbitration in the World Trade Organization. If successful, the U.S. could get sanctions against offending nations.

U.S. industry continues to lose billions of dollars a year because of trade barriers and other infringements. Now the countries involved are officially on notice.