Posted on 11/21/2003 1:43:43 PM PST by Destro
Tokyo to impose tariffs on U.S. iron and steel
Bloomberg News Friday, November 21, 2003
TOKYO Japan will impose tariffs of about 30 percent on U.S. iron and steel products as early as this year in retaliation for U.S. duties on Japanese steel, Trade Ministry officials said on Friday.
Japan will also raise tariffs on clothing, leather and household goods by about 5 percent, said two officials from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
The proposed tariffs will be submitted to the World Trade Organization after they are approved by a customs committee in the Ministry of Finance Wednesday, the officials said.
At the request of the U.S. steel industry, the Bush administration implemented the duties on Japanese steel imports in March 2002. A WTO panel ruled them to be illegal on July 11, and Washington lost an appeal of that decision in a final ruling this month. Japan will be able to impose the tariffs 30 days after reporting the plan to the WTO.
Steel products make up about 40 percent of the ¥10.7 billion, or $98 million, in U.S. imports subject to the extra duties. But only 10,000 tons of the 2.74 million tons of ordinary steel imported in the year ended on March 31 came from the United States, said a spokesman for the Japan Iron and Steel Federation.
European Union policy makers last year drew up a list of U.S. products targeted for retaliatory tariffs, including agricultural goods and products from states considered important to President George W. Bush's re-election campaign. Those tariffs are to take effect next month unless Washington relents.
Bush is on a state visit to Britain, which has also criticized U.S. steel policy. The WTO's director general, Supachai Panitchpakdi, said he supported British efforts to persuade Washington to drop the tariffs.
US gets warning on steel safeguards
( 2003-11-20 23:43) (China Daily)
China will take retaliatory measures if the United States fails to lift its illegal tariff on steel products, a senior official said Thursday.
"We will raise tariffs on some US imports and are studying the details of how to do so,'' said Vice-Minister of Commerce Ma Xiuhong when asked how China would respond if the United States did not abide by a recent World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling.
The WTO Appellate Body ruled last Monday that US safeguards for its steel industry are inconsistent with WTO rules, upholding the major findings of a July ruling.
China, along with the European Union, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Switzerland, Norway, New Zealand and Brazil, complained to the Geneva-based WTO over the steel duties. The duties were initially levied at up to 30 per cent from March 2002 but subsequently reduced slightly.
It was the first panel request by China since it joined the WTO in late 2001.
Members affected by the US measures will be entitled to apply for redress and take other appropriate action in accordance with WTO rules, unless the safeguards are withdrawn.
The European Commission has drawn up a hit list of US imports worth about US$2.2 billion a year -- including motorcycles, citrus fruits and textiles -- which will be targeted with retaliatory sanctions.
EC Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy has said the retaliatory import tariffs could be in place as soon as early December if the United States does not back down now.
Japan is also considering raising duties on at least five products in retaliation against import tariffs protecting the US steel industry, the daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei) said earlier this week.
Quoting Trade Ministry sources, the Nikkei said the products Japan was considering as targets for the retaliatory tariffs included coal, chemicals, steel, textiles and electrical machinery.
If introduced, the tariffs would cost US exporters 10 billion yen (US$91 million) a year, the paper said.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Wednesday President George W. Bush will decide in a "short period of time'' whether or not to rollback disputed steel tariffs that have threatened a new transatlantic trade war.
Ma said the United States should withdraw the safeguard measures without delay since the WTO has made a ruling against them.
The United States proposed a compromise to head off a trade war with the EU.
But European trade officials dismissed the potential compromise from US steelmakers that would reduce contentious steel tariffs, saying the tariffs remain illegal and ought to be completely removed.
The US safeguard measures triggered a new round of trade protectionism in the global steel industry, with the European Union, Canada and Japan rushing to protect domestic markets from steel exports that might be diverted from the United States.
China followed suit with temporary measures introduced for six months last May. They were extended to three years upon their expiration in mid-November.
The George W Bush administration's announcement on Tuesday that it would limit the import of knit fabrics, dressing gowns, robes and brassieres from China considerably complicates a US trade system that seems to be slipping out of control and threatens an international trade war on several fronts.
What are we supposed to do, quiver in our boots? What do they buy from us besides nothing? We should cut them off completely since all they're doing is flooding our markets with products made from slave labor while putting Americans out of work.
Well I'm just peeing my pants from the intimidation. </sarcasm>
As a consumer, I prefer to buy American. Prices haven't dropped on items made overseas, but the quality has. As a consumer, a little extra money to buy American suits me fine. So don't worry about us and our consuming -- we prefer to consume AMERICAN!!!
The reality is that Japan and Europe were dumping their steel. Why? Though they lose money in the short run, when the competition is run out, prices can then go up. Happens all the time.
Bad policy.
Yet somehow the U.S. rose to world dominance in industry, and concomitant consumer affluence, during decades upon decades of tariffs as part of U.S. economic policy. Musta been a statistical aberration spanning several generations.
They don't have to.
Once they've finished plundering our Middle Class, plunging us into Third World parity, we won't be able to afford any of those luxury items anyway.
Tariffs cause the price of the things I need to buy to go up. Net loss of income to me.
The retaliatory tariffs cause my company to sell less. So now I'm going to lose my job, and things are more expensive than ever.
Somehow, that pleases you and seems like sound economic policy.
This is stupid. Result? Products cost more in America, which means higher prices for consumers and corporations, which means economy suffers, and cost of doing business in America rises, so companies leave. Isolationism is craziness.
Because their governments subsidize this dumping as a predatory measure to eventually starve out industries in other countries like the US.
I think the US should go on the offensive and make comprehensive high profile complaints to the WTO and the offending countries about all such cases of dumping where it is affecting US industry and impose automatic matching tariffs on imports of the same classes of goods from countries that slap tariffs on US exports. The time has long gone when the US needed to coddle Japan's or China's capitalistic tendencies by giving the economic store away.
Who said anything about isolationism? There's a difference between trading with countries who are on some economic par with you and those who pay their workers .20 an hour. How is that fair to Americans workers to ask them to compete against that?
Notice I said China and not Japan. Eventually I hope we will work out arrangments with Japan that brings about a more balanced way of trading, but as far as I'm concerned China and the rest of these third world countries can chew glass, they're taking advantage of us.
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