US Blocking Costa Rican Sugar Trade To Force IP Laws

For the last couple of days news has been trickling in about how the US is trying to ram IP laws down Costa Rica's throat by blocking their access to the US sugar market. Techdirt has a good summary of the various commentaries and a related scoop in the Bahamas where the US is also applying IP pressure. "The first is in Costa Rica, which is included in the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Yet like with other free trade agreements that the US has agreed to elsewhere, this one includes draconian intellectual property law requirements. I still cannot understand why intellectual monopoly protectionism — the exact opposite of 'free trade' — gets included in free trade agreements. At least in Costa Rica, a lot of people started protesting these rules, pointing out that it would be harmful for the economy, for education and for healthcare. So the Costa Rican government has not moved forward with such laws. How has the US responded? It's blocking access to the US market of Costa Rican sugar until Costa Rica approves new copyright laws."

Comments

Re:Color me underwhelmed.

[jedidiah]

Muslims hated America before it was even born. They hate all of the nice complaint nations of Europe no less. They always have.

They are still sore for the fact that they didn't get the chance to convert all of us.

They're like any other fundies on the planet (including our own). They don't need any real injustice to justify their need to wipe us out.