Posted on 03/31/2005 4:34:42 AM PST by Rebelbase
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - The European Union said Thursday it will impose sanctions on U.S. products to punish Washington for failing to repeal an antidumping law ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization.
The EU head office said its action would be joined soon by seven other nations, including Japan, South Korea and Brazil, which had all requested the WTO authorize retaliation.
The EU's move would slap additional duties of up to 15 percent as of May 1 on such U.S. products as paper, textiles, machinery and farm produce.
The EU head office said it took its latest step "in light of the continuing failure of the United States to bring its legislation in conformity with its international obligations."
The 25-nation EU has long asked for Washington to repeal the 3-year-old legislation and the Bush administration has been working with Congress to bring it into line with its obligations. Yet the EU executive Commission said it was time to bring further action.
It said that according to the latest information, the level of retaliation would amount to slightly less than $28 million.
The Geneva-based WTO first ruled the U.S. legislation illegal in 2002 and gave the United States until the end of 2003 to conform. When it didn't, the eight complainants were given the option late last year to impose sanctions.
"The EU understands that Canada will be announcing retaliatory measures against certain products from the United States and expects that other co-complainants will soon join it in applying retaliation," the EU head office said.
The other complainants are Brazil, Chile, India, Japan, South Korea and Mexico.
The law, known as the Byrd amendment, allows American companies to receive proceeds from antidumping duties levied on foreign rivals. In four annual distributions, over $1 billion has been distributed to such industries as steel and metal producers and food and household items.
The European Commission said there were no negotiating meetings with U.S. officials planned ahead of the May 1 deadline.
Trade wars here.
Trade sanctions on the US they can agree on; stopping a genocide under way in Sudan they can't.
That's Europe for you. It's getting time to add a few countries to the anti-France boycott... let's add Belguim, Germany, and Spain for starters and see if they get the message. (Not like anyone goes to or buys anything from Belguim.)
Joe, great homepage.
Yet they have absolutely no problem getting under the table oil deals from Saddam Hussein, or selling arms to China, or keeping the Castro regime afloat in Cuba, or supporting the terrorist Yasser Arafat when he was alive, or.....
Europe disgusts me more and more everyday.
Thank you, it's not my production but it echos my sentiments.
"The other complainants are Brazil, Chile, India, Japan, South Korea and Mexico."
We'll likely have to back down on this one. Or just accept tarriffs on our goods from other nations.
"buy anything from Belguim.)"
Smurfs? Chocolates?
They do make some really good beers. In particular, the monks there have been doing it for centuries.
i was there once - smurfs are all over the place
they give them away at McDonalds - never had the beer though
Sanctions have a tendency to hurt your own economy just as much, or more, than they hurt the economy of the country you are sanctioning.
" (Not like anyone goes to or buys anything from Belguim.)"
Excellent beer, with literally hundreds of breweries, and chocolate, as well as some excellent tourist destinations (Bruges, for example).
Stella Artois beer is probably the only thing I like about Belgium.
One result of our high steel tarriffs was on manufacturing that involved steel(so a lot of the total)..
The South Koreans went and were dumping excess steel inventory on the world market, but the powerful steel lobby got Washington to increase the costs on forein steel.
The problem was the Chinese government didn't put on the tarriffs, so the South Koreans ended up dumping it into China. Which with some of that ultra cheap steel, they created manufactured goods for export to America. The American manufacturers couldn't compete and jobs were lost.
Sometimes I wonder if these WTO meetings are not just a world tax setting body at work, “You can tax our textiles in May if you let us tax your shrimp in October."
That doesn’t sound like “dumping” in the sense of a strategy to take over an industry.
The "Byrd Amendment", like Byrd himself, needs to be tossed out with the trash....
I didn't know Stella was Belgian... thanks for letting me know to avoid it.
"as if they were conspiring to take over out shrimping industry."
IIRC, US Shrimpers claimed the were headed the way of textiles because of low priced Asian and Central American farm raised shrimp flooding the market.
The local catch (unless its peak season and on sale) sells for twice as much as the imported stuff at the grocery store.
Funny aside to this: My brother bought a bag of frozen Thai raised shrimp for fishing bait. He was side by side with some folks who were using local shirmp for bait and were landing whoppers one after another, but there was not one nibble on my brother's line. He changed to local shrimp and soon filled the cooler with fish.
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