EU Approves Sanctions Against US In Row Over Byrd Amendment

by Ulrika Lomas, for LawAndTax-News.com, Brussels

28 April 2005

EU foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg on Monday approved without debate measures imposing sanctions on a range of US products, following Congress's failure to repeal anti-dumping legislation.

Under the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000, also known as the Byrd amendment, overseas firms which sell their products at below cost price in the US can be fined by the government, with the money going to the US firm or firms which initially made the anti-dumping complaint.

The European Union, Brazil, Canada, Chile, India, Japan, Mexico, and South Korea have argued for several years that such a regime permits illegal subsidies for the industries in question, and is therefore incompatible with WTO rules. The Organisation itself came out in support of this view in 2002, ruling the Byrd amendment illegal, and giving the US government until December 2003 to repeal the measure.

This has not as yet occurred, leading the European Commission to agree last month to the imposition of a 15% additional duty on US exports including paper, textile and farm products. Canada also recently agreed to impose the 15% tax on a range of US exports.

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