Click here for Full Issue of EIR Volume 13, Number 15, April 11, 1986

u.s., European fann policies shaped by Trilateral strategy.

byWilliam Engdahl

The new French agriculture minister, Fran�ois Guillaume, the survivalof 's Christian!Democratic government Hew to at the beginning of April for the European under Helmut Kohl very much on lheline. Community (EC) ministerial talks on farm price levels for The situation of Western European farmers more gener­ 1986-87. Guillaume told press in Paris that he is committed . ally has reacheda level of crisis not seen since the imposition to raising income for European farmers. He termed the pro­ of the Common Agricultural Policy in the late 1950s. And, posal of EC Agriculture Commissioner Franz Andriessen as the Stoltenberg case would indicate, in this crisis, the (Holland), which would institute severe reductions in the policy-options being presented in Brussels and in member prices paid to farmers, "unacceptable." He demanded the EC capitals have been carefully prepared by a secretive club body "make other, more serious proposals." of insiders closely tied to international bank and grain-cartel As Guillaume pointed out, the primary objective of the companies. In all principal features, both U.S. and EC farm­ 29-year-old Treaty of Rome which established a Common ers are being destroyed in a proce$s of cartelization which Agriculture Policy for the nations of the European Commu­ intends to destroy national familY-lBlit farming and replace it nity, is to maintain adequate income for European farmers. with giant, supranational food cartels or combines such as According to the European farmers' umbrella organiza­ Unilever of Holland and Britain, or Nestle of Switzerland. tion, COPA, net farmer income in the European producing countries plunged by 12% in 1985. COPA also estimates that Trilateral agriculture strategy the latest price austerity proposals from Andriessen would Using monies providedby the West RobertGerman Bosch mean new income reductions of farmers of 12-15%, through Foundation, Pierre Lardinois, chairman of the multinational reduced price supports and select production taxes, a so­ Dutch agriCUlture bank, Rabobank,,supervised a policy study called co-responsibility levy on cereal grains. for the Trilateral Commission which was completed last year, The surprise entry of Guillaume, until mid-March the at approximatelythe time that thethen- U . S. AgricultureSec­ president of the largest French farmers' organization, the retary John Block delivered the final Reagan administration 700,OOO-member FNSEA, came as a result of cabinetchanges 1985 Farm Bill to Congress. The Lardinois strategy attacks following the French elections in March. The addition of a the EC for having a "quite rigid and high price system of strong advocate from the French side is expected to strength­ guarantees for cereals, protected by levies on imports and en the position of West German Agriculture Minister Ignaz subsidies on exports." It calls for the European Community Kiechle, who last year invoked West German veto rights to implement a more "market-oriented system." The "mar­ rather than accept sharp EC support price cuts. ket" the Lardinois report refers tOJ of course, is the markC(t ECsurplus stocks are now at record levels, since farmers controlledby the multinational network of agriCUlturetrading who cannot sell their product at acceptable prices are guar­ companies and banks such as Chase Manhattan and Rabob­ anteed EC purchase for storage, and have been increasingly ank which finance international foqdexports .. forced to exercise that option. The resulting surplus in the Since the early 1970s when then Secretary of State and EC intervention storage for beef, butter, and grain products Trilateral Commission Executive Director Henry Kissinger is now beingused as a major club to implement "U.S. -style" brokeredthe firstmassive Soviet grain deal, the "freemarket" farm-price austerity. in agricultural products has been hostage to Russian grain Earlier in March, West German Finance Minister Ger­ demand't1.uctuations. With collapsing economies in devel­ hardStoltenberg, a member of the secretive Trilateral Com­ oping sector regions blocking impOrt of needed grain and mission, told Brussels EC administrators that budget auster­ otheragJ,iculture products, the Sovietmarket has become all­ ity will be demanded of them. Stoltenberg'sbudget austerity controlling. This marketin tum, is controlled by a tiny hand­ line would undercut farmers' attempts to reverse a situation ful of giants such as Cargill, �ontinental, Dreyfus, and banks of financial catastrophe which, by reliable estimates, is now such as David Rockefeller'S Chase:Manhattan. destroying tens of thousands of West German farmers-with In France, theSoviet channel is monopolized by Gorba-

EUR April 11, 1986 Economics 13

© 1986 EIR News Service Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission strictly prohibited. chov-intimate Jean-Baptiste Doumeng, whose finn SOCO­ Paper," a policy document ad�ocating severe farm ppce re­ PA was just involved in a scandal over insider-trading in­ duction which, as the COPA farmers' organization �mpha­ volving Brussels EC officials and the Soviets. Involved was sized, "would result in a dramatic fall" in the already low export of EC surplus beef to Moscow at give-away prices. level of farm incomes, forcing Europe's farmers to "leave The Trilateral program does not. stop at the European agriculture or to intensify [production] more and more." borders. It advocates that in the United States as well as The fact that both the U.S. and EC policies are echoing Europe, "Levels of protection should be significantly re­ the Lardinois Trilateral Commission "free market" strategy duced" and that "domestic producers be faced with some of cartelization is not surprisihg. Look at who made up the degree of competition from the international markets." Fur­ Lardinois task force which drafted the Trilateral .strategy. ther, they demand thatthe "trilateral countries [United States, According to official documents obtained from the commis­ EEC and Japan] should move together in achieving more sion, Lardinois drew in the collaboration of such people as "market -oriented" policies for agriculture. " Gilbert Salomon, chainnan of Doumeng's SOCOPA; Albert So, the policy of the Trilateral Commission is clear: In Simantov, OECD director for agriculture in Paris; Robert the middle of the worst income and price depression ever Thompson of the White House Council of Economic Advis­ experienced by U .S. and European farmers, collapse control ers; Helmut von Verschuer, EC deputy director general for of traditional farm ownership into the hands of the multina­ agriculture in Brussels, working directly under Andriessen; tional combines, giving these global control over food sup­ Dale Hathaway, fonner U.S. undersecretary of agriculture; plies. To achieve this objective of this "market-oriented!' Clayton Yeutter, U.S. special trade representative and a for­ policy, the cartel companies must bankrupt major sections of mer U.S. secretary of agriculture; and A. de Zeeuw, chair­ advanced industrial nation's farm ownership, and force the man of the committee on trade in agriculture for the General remainingfarmers to sell out to the multinatiqnals under some Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT). fonn of neo-feudal absentee ownership of the farm. Removing national protective tariffs and price supports, the AndriessenlStoltenberg fonnula at the EC, is merely "the The package qfagricultural policies first step," as one leading French farm veteran expressed it in a recent discussion. The trade war now being unleashed now leading to a . trade war infarm betweenEuropean and American farmers is being carefully products between the United States orchestrated to feed the cartelization process. and Europe was drawn up jOintly Flexing the 'BICEP' by leading U.S. and European The 1985 Farm Bill of the U.S. Department of Agricul­ specialists committed to the ture aims to provoke the Trilateral Commission's trade war, Trilateral CommisSion's goals. and is otherwise wholly a part of the Trilateral Commission stra�gy of "market-oriented international commpetition." Included in the bill is a so-called Bonus Incenti ve Commodity Export Program, appropriately: BICEP. Under BICEP, the Lardinois himself has intimate ties in the Brussels bu­ USDA is subsidizing the grain multinationals such as Cargill reaucracy. He was EC commissioner for agriCUlture until withfree government grain, allowing them to selectively 1977, when he joined Rabobank. Rabobank is known to be attacktraditional EC exportmarkets such as Egypt and North involved in large U.S. farm investments, taking full advan­ Africa. Already in 1985, BICEP export subsidies hit EEC tage of depression farm prices which his Trilateral Commis­ export markets sharply, especially French, according to sion "free market" strategy is designed to guarantee. Western European trading sources. In sum, the package of agricultural policies now leading BICEP is one of a package of export subsidies to the to a trade war in agriCUlture products between the United cartel multinationals. Under the same bill, U.S. farmers will States and Europe was drawn upjointly by leading U.S. and beforced to take 30% of wheat and some 10% of cornacreage European specialists committed to the Trilateral Commis­ out of production, a move which helps the "supply manage­ sion 's goals. ment" carteltrading houses and financial institutions to boost The next phase in this Trilateral strategy will is already profits at farmers' expense. The entire 1985 U.S. Farm Bill underway, the current, orchestrated dispute between United was promoted as a "tum to the free market" by Block and States and the EC over export of U. S. corn and soy beans to fonner Cargill executive Daniel Amstutz, who as deputy Spain and . Willy de Clerq, EC commissioner for secretaryunder Block is widely credited with beingthe policy external affairs, "attacked" Clayton Yeutter for launching a architect of the bill. "flagrantviolation of its GATTrights. " De Clerq is a member The same Trilateral Commission policy shaped EC Ag­ of the Trilateral Commission. Yeutter is a close collaborator riculture Commissioner Andriessen's controversial "Green of the Trilateral Commission. It's a small world.

14 Economics EIR April 11, 1986