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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (June 30, 2018)
Saturday, June 30, 2018 VIEWPOINTS East Oregonian Page 5A Trump will protect American farmers from China’s trade retaliation I n 2011, a group of Chinese including historic tax reforms nationals dug up genetically and reduced regulations. And engineered seeds from an farmers know that 20 cents of Iowa corn field and planned every dollar of their income relies to steal and send them back to on trade, which is why they are China, so they could be watching the situation reverse engineered. Those with China closely. The seeds, the result of years simple truth is that when of research and millions trading partners break of dollars of American the rules, there must be investment, now stand consequences. as one of countless Pressuring China pieces of evidence in the To stop China’s case against China for Sony predatory attacks on intellectual property theft Perdue America’s innovation and unfair trade practices. Comment Now, President Donald base, President Trump Trump is standing up to is instituting a program China, which wrongly believes of tariffs and is considering it can bully our farmers to get investment restrictions and America to back away from strengthened export controls. defending our national interests. These tariffs will help pressure The president understands that the Chinese to stop engaging in our farmers feed, fuel and clothe unfair practices and fully open this nation and the world, and he up its markets to U.S. products, will not allow U.S. agriculture including U.S. technologies. to bear the brunt of China’s The correct response from China retaliatory tactics. would be to stop stealing from American producers have Americans and give American benefited from the policies products a level playing field to of the Trump administration, compete in China, not to retaliate and reinforce its own position. There is no denying that the disruption in trade relations with China is unsettling to many in agriculture, but if the president succeeds in changing China’s behavior, America’s farmers will reap the benefits. In the meantime, the president has instructed me to craft a strategy to support our farmers in the face of retaliatory tariffs. At the U.S. Department of Agriculture, we have tools at our disposal to support farmers faced with losses that might occur due to downturns in commodities markets. To this point, we have not unveiled our strategy, as it is not good practice to open our playbook while the opposing team is watching. But farmers should know this: They have stood with President Trump and his policies, and we will make good on our promise to stand with them as well. If China does not soon mend its ways, we will quickly begin fulfilling our promise to support producers, who have become casualties of Once again, Native American sovereignty wins in court A landmark decision this June from litigation that began almost 50 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld when Washington state Attorney General the rights of several tribes to hunt, and future Republican Sen. Slade Gorton gather and fish on the Northwest coast of challenged the scope of the tribes’ fishing Washington state, thereby ending a 50-year rights, hoping to extinguish them forever. battle over Native American As in the Winans case, sovereignty and states’ rights. Washington state’s 1970 lawsuit A narrow reading of this relied on states’ rights to carry decision would focus primarily the day. Attorney General Gorton on fish counts and what the state raised three questions about of Washington will have to pay to the Stevens treaties. Did they remove close to 2,000 road culverts, guarantee the tribes a percentage impediments to fish migration. But of the annual commercial catch? a broader reading shows its real Are hatchery-bred fish included importance: Very few cases have in that percentage? Did Native Paul come down the pike with more rights include protections from Vande- far-reaching implications for state degradation that would render the velder governments. tribes’ fishing rights useless? Comment Thanks to promises made The now-famous 1974 Boldt to Northwest tribes in the mid- Decision answered the first 1850s by Isaac Stevens, Washington’s first question by guaranteeing tribes’ half of territorial governor, no state has a more the commercial salmon catch. The second impressive record of losing legal battles answer was easy: The allocation could with Indian tribes than Washington does. not be limited to hatchery-raised fish. The President Franklin Pierce sent Stevens to third question was bandied back and forth the region to negotiate with Native tribes in courts for decades. In the end, it proved and open the Oregon Territory to white to be the state’s undoing. Washington was settlement. The legal trickery Stevens used counting on the reluctance of lower courts to accomplish those ends has come back to to place the burden of “environmental haunt lawmakers for generations. servitude” on the state. But in 2007, the Stevens promised lower Puget Sound 9th Circuit Court of Appeals clarified that tribes the perpetual right to “hunt, gather, burden by ruling that the Stevens’ treaties and fish in all of the usual and accustomed impose “a duty upon the state to refrain places.” But he also told a cheering from building and operating culverts… that audience of white settlers in Olympia that hinder fish passage.” his real objective was to promise the tribes The cost for removing those culverts anything in order to “extinguish, as quickly and other impediments to fish migration as possible, their claims to traditional lands could run into the billions. Headlines in so that settlers could be given legal title.” newspapers will doubtless focus on the Steven’s approach to ethnic cleansing dollars and the fish counts, but the beating eventually led to war with the Nez Perce, heart of this case lies in its willingness the Umatilla and the Yakama tribes, while to ask if states could be held responsible some of his other treaties led to century- for safeguarding Native-owned natural long battles in federal courts. To their resources protected by treaties. credit, our nation’s founders anticipated The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals these conflicts and designated treaties answered in the affirmative, and the “the supreme law of the land” under Supremes let that ruling stand, saying to the Constitution. This trustee-guarantor Washington state, in effect: You should partnership between tribes and the federal have taken the Boldt Decision seriously government has been the backbone of and prepared remedies for all these treaty federal Indian law since 1832, when Chief violations before the salmon became a Justice John Marshall’s “trust doctrine” protected species. Don’t blame the tribes for made it the government’s responsibility to your failure to live up to your obligations. safeguard the rights and resources of treaty Now, the question no state wants to tribes, trumping all other obligations. ask is how will future courts divine the Washington’s legal battles began with difference between the culverts that stop United States v. Winans in 1905, over the fish from reaching their breeding beds, and Yakama Nation’s treaty right to hunt, gather all the dams that do the same thing? and fish in their “usual and accustomed ■ place,” which happened to be owned by Paul VanDevelder is the author of white people. Fast-forward to today, and “Coyote Warrior: One Man, Three Tribes, and the Trial that Forged a Nation.” the just-decided culverts case resolves these disputes. Without question, there is much at stake for this nation in trade disagreements. A bullying and predatory China has made no secret of the fact that it seeks to acquire America’s technological crown jewels by any means necessary — through physical and cybertheft, forced technology transfer, evasion of our export controls, and state-directed and state-funded investment in sensitive technology. And while it may seem outrageous, China has rejected American genetically engineered products, while sending agents crawling in corn fields to pilfer samples of our technology and even purchasing a company that provides U.S. farmers with key genetically engineered seeds. Economic future President Trump has said correctly that if China captures the industries of tomorrow, America will not have an economic future to look forward to — and our national security will be severely compromised. Cutting-edge technologies — from artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles and biotechnology to aerospace, high- tech shipping and robotics — are critical to our defense. We are faced with a decision: Will others determine our destiny, or will we control our own future? China began raiding our economy long before a team of thieves infiltrated that Iowa corn field, but President Trump aims to stop the larceny now. The president is a tough negotiator, and I am confident that American agriculture will flourish because of trade relationships that are smarter, stronger and better than before. China might underestimate the strength and resolve of American farmers, but the president does not. And he will not allow our agricultural producers to suffer because of China’s continued bad actions. ■ Sonny Perdue is the secretary of Agriculture. Follow him on Twitter: @SecretarySonny I may have glimpsed the future y first hike in a South Korean troops of weekend hikers, all with trekking poles, sun hats and spiffy daypacks. They national park was enchanting are out there, even off-season, even on — Seoraksan National Park, in weekdays. the northeast corner of the peninsula, on a It turned out that our Seoraksan snowy weekday. The walk began along a experience was typical. Many parks broad, manicured promenade, past open with manicured walkways a gigantic black statue of Buddha, bordered by flowering trees and across sculpted stone bridges, past meticulous landscaping, leading ornate temples lined with topiary. to temples or pagodas on ponds Snow sifted down. Mist draped the with backdrops of foliage that mountains. draw hundreds of thousands of Eventually, the walkway picture-takers each fall. Then the dwindled to the width of a trails bend up to the peaks and sidewalk, and then to more of a ridges, following brutal stair-master trail, still wide and well traveled, Alan bending steadily uphill. Several Kesselheim challenges up flights of steep steps. Not a switchback in sight. kilometers along, another small Comment Hiking is social. You are almost temple, a hermitage, hewn out of never alone. People play music. massive granite boulders, lit by There are stations along trails selling drinks candles, with a clear spring collecting in and snacks. We were never on a peak with a basin. A soothing male voice broadcast Buddhist teachings over subdued speakers. fewer than 15 other people, and often it The trail steepened. Ice coated the trees, was more like 50, all picnicking, taking pictures with selfie-sticks, shouting to steps and railings in a slick, transparent each other. In more populous spots, or on layer. There were no switchbacks. Instead, a weekend, trails might as well be conga flights of steep stairs, some almost ladder- like, were bolted into rock faces. Hundreds lines. So much for enlightenment. So much and hundreds of stairs, each one sheathed for solitude. So much for the possibility in treacherous ice. Mist tore past crags, of wildlife. In South Korea, there are revealed sheer cliff faces, glimpses of interpretive signs featuring bear and monolithic granite walls. Despite the tiger and deer, but I doubt there are ever dangerous conditions, there were other sightings of anything more feral than hikers picking their way to the rocky woodpeckers and squirrels. Still, you have summits. to love the enthusiasm, the urge to get out, It was the kind of day that made me get exercise, to walk. More power to them. think, with naive envy, about Buddhist Somewhere during those weeks, I monks living solitary, meditative lives. reflected on the future of recreation in The phrase, “snow falling on cedars” kept North America and the rest of the world. repeating in my mind. We topped it off Yes, we have more landscape to lose with a visit to nearby public baths, which ourselves in. Yes, we have relatively clear were segregated, nude and incredibly skies and clean water and more abundant refreshing. public lands, and more opportunities to We were in South Korea for a month. encounter wildlife. But incrementally, Our son was in the Paralympic Games those qualities are eroding. Most of us go as a guide for a visually impaired skier. to popular destinations where the parking Our strategy, once the games ended, was lots overflow on busy weekends, where to spend several weeks hopping from national park to national park. South Korea hiking is as much a social experience as an encounter with the wild. We are shedding has 22 national parks, as well as dozens species just as fast as the rest of the world. of provincial parks and cultural sites, Little by little, our sense of what is including a remarkable “penis” park along normal in the backcountry is evolving. the craggy eastern coast — who knew? Imagine what the mountains and forests South Korea is mountainous, more or and coasts we visit today were like 50 years less the size of Iceland, and 51 million ago, 100 years ago, even 20 years ago. Are people live there. Much of the terrain is we destined to become more and more like too steep to build on. Even so, the country South Korea, where the backcountry is has preserved panoramic and culturally full of enthusiastic humans, but stripped of significant landscapes for all to enjoy. In everything else except the views? addition, even in densely populated areas, ■ trails wind through cities, punctuated by Alan Kesselheim is a contributor to exercise and stretching stations that get Writers on the Range, the opinion service used a lot, by young and old. of High Country News. He is a writer in South Koreans love to recreate, by the busload. School groups, older couples, and Montana. M
