If we're not just tying up the loose ends of a former government - obligated to finalize the agreement simply because we started the process more than a decade ago - what's the real reason for us pushing so hard to confirm our membership in the WTO? And what does our country with its unusual balance of services and goods see as the real benefits to joining?
Are we pursuing membership in the WTO to trade tourism and banking services? That doesn't sound right. Those who want to trade in tourism and banking services come to our shores to do it, or they do it from abroad as they always have.
Are we joining the WTO to trade our goods? Well, what exactly are we exporting that necessitates the WTO membership we seek? Our exports aren't many and the goods we do produce are already being traded.
Furthermore, once we open our doors to the WTO our domestic production costs will increase with fewer people buying local products and so our exports will become relatively more expensive, at least for a while. That doesn't sound like a reasonable hope to export more in the near future.
Or, is our engagement with the WTO less about securing markets in which to sell the things we make and more about securing markets from which to buy all the imports we want at the lowest possible prices?
And if we want so much to be a part of a major world trading bloc, does what we discover about free trade in the process of subjecting ourselves to world scrutiny not emphasize the need to place our production efforts on goods and not only or predominantly on services?
But since we are again riding the cart-driven horse, and we're already knocking on the WTO door, we owe it to ourselves to contemplate and answer all of our concerns and doubts about it.
And one concern that has not been tabled but which may be the biggest concern about the WTO is the process of accession which is not transparent to anyone other than a couple of our politicians and a group of other politicians from countries whose eyes glaze over at our appetite for cheap imports.
All the details of our accession to the WTO are negotiated behind closed doors. Yes, we elect government officials and entrust them with the recurring duty of representing our collective needs and wishes, but the lack of transparency at that level of compromise is risky, especially given the historic lack of due diligence on the part of our representatives to properly investigate the real value of our resources and negotiate the best deals for us.
Whereas it is understandable that a private contract is typically negotiated confidentially between the individual parties involved, it's unsettling that others, some without any vested interest in our true welfare, are secretly negotiating the future of all Bahamian citizens - business persons and others. And we are not allowed to know any of the details of their discussions until they've reached a final, binding agreement, one which I and all my countrywomen and countrymen can only hope will be in our combined best interests.
The track record of negotiating anything on the world stage in favor of the Bahamian people, by current and former governments, is not very impressive. We should be able to flex more muscle for the benefit of our people, but our muscles atrophy in the wake of important issues and in the presence of world powers. Perhaps this is due to insufficient, regular exercise at managing issues that really matter. But whatever the reason, we need all the information - and muscle - we can get to see our way clearly through WTO negotiations.
As it stands, our political leaders can negotiate terms for us in the WTO that Bahamians would never support in a transparent regime or democratic vote and without knowing what those things are long before negotiations are complete.
And this presents a classic example of what some trade economists refer to as policy laundering.
For The Bahamas and its accession to the WTO, this is how that policy laundering scenario plays out:
The government is deeply in debt and the debt is rapidly growing. It needs more revenue. It has had the prospect of WTO membership lingering for over a decade. It tells the citizens that we need to be party to the WTO because it's long overdue, but a fundamental requirement of this association is to remove or greatly reduce the main source of government revenue (taxes/ tariffs on imported goods at the border) and replace it with another tax to compensate for the loss.
The Bahamian government knows the Bahamian people don't want to hear anything about paying taxes, since they hardly pay the ones that exist, so to sell its plan the government makes the WTO the reason for the new taxes. And because it makes a massive trade agreement the reason for the new source of tax revenue it requires, the only tax that makes sense is the value-added tax (VAT).
It's a backdoor method of bringing into law or existence something which is unwelcome or widely unpopular. Rather than implement the desired policy from within the country it is done at the international level and imposed upon the people as the most acceptable policy in the international arena; because it is, it cannot be denied or challenged.
In effect, the acts of creating an alliance, signing a binding agreement, making national policy changes or seeking the passage of new law become, as one author puts it, an 'erosion of civil liberties', where the people's democratic rights are compromised, along with the country's sovereign rights, because it is all left to be decided at a level even 'higher' than the people and executives of a country.
Before we become fully committed to the WTO, we should know:
Firstly, is this a reversible decision, if we no longer want to be a part of the WTO?
The 1994 Uruguay Round Agreements Act of the United States Congress provides that every five years the president reports on WTO participation and the congress votes on whether to remain in the WTO.
What if The Bahamas said, ahead of or after accession, "Yes, we've been watching you for 13 years but we're no longer interested"? Is this conceivable? How would this be received? Will we be blacklisted, or sanctioned, as a result of a change in direction we perceive to be better for us?
Secondly, has any country ever been dismissed from the WTO or left the organization of their own volition? If so, under what circumstances and by what methods? And what was the end result of its departure?
Thirdly, will this accession to the WTO eventually force us to remove our currency peg to the U.S. dollar, when, as a result of an unprecedented increase in U.S. imports and decrease in Bahamian exports, our U.S. currency demand becomes far greater than our demand for our own currency?
Could we, one day soon, become a U.S. dollar-only economy?
o Nicole Burrows is an academically trained economist. She can be contacted at: nicole.burrows@outlook.com or www.Facebook.com/NicoleEtc.

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