United States Facing Sanctions Over Anti-Dumping Law

by Glen Shapiro, LawAndTax-News.com, New York

15 November 2004

It emerged last week that the United States is facing the possibility of new sanctions being imposed on its exports, as a result of Congress's failure to repeal anti-dumping legislation.

Under the law in question, 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.

As this has not taken place, the aggrieved trading partners (with the exception of Chile, which has withdrawn from the dispute) have submitted lists of the US exports on which they plan to impose sanctions to the World Trade Organisation.

The lists are set to be approved by the WTO when its disputes settlement body meets on November 24, and sanctions may be imposed at any point after that.

Estimates have suggested that the combined sanctions are likely to cost the US government in the region of $150 million per year.

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