Brazil cotton deal perpetuates an unhealthy status quo of subsidies
Published by The Washington Post (The text below has been slightly modified to better suit the exam)
1. When is a victory for the United States not a victory for the American taxpayer? When it’s an international agreement like the one the Obama administration has just reached to settle a long-running dispute with Brazil over cotton subsidies. The roots of that dispute lie in this country’s history of showering federal funds on crop producers, including cotton growers. That particular business received 32.9billionfromWashingtonbetween1995and2012,accordingtotheEnvironmentalWorkingGroup,largelythroughprogramsthathadtheeffectofrewardingfarmersforincreasingproduction.Theextrasupplydampened9pricesontheworldmarket,so,in2002,BrazilcomplainedtotheWorldTradeOrganization,whichruledthatUScottonsubsidieswereindeed“trade−distorting”andauthorizedBraziltoretaliateagainstUSexports.TheUnitedStatesavoidedsanctions—notbyreformingitsprogramsbutbyagreeingin2010topayBrazil’scottonfarmers147.3 million per year.
2. In short, the US government bought off Brazil’s cotton farmers so that it could keep on buying off its own. Under the new settlement, announced Wednesday, Brazil agreed to drop its case at the WTO and to forgo any new ones during the five-year term of the farm bill Congress enacted last year. In return, the United States agreed to trim the modest US cotton export credit subsidy program and, most important, to pay Brazil one last dollop of taxpayer cash, in the amount of $300 million.
3. This is good news to the extent that it fortifies US-Brazil relations on the eve of a new presidential term in that country and that it spares US exporters from the threat of Brazilian retaliation, which could have reached a total of $829 million per year. Yet, in essence, the new deal perpetuates the unhealthy status quo whereby the United States pays Brazil ____ the right ____ continue propping _____ a domestic cotton industry that can ____ should learn to compete ____ its own.
What does buy off mean as used in the text?
