Posted on 08/01/2005 8:28:53 AM PDT by Righty_McRight
TOKYO (AFP) - Japan became the latest major US trading partner to impose sanctions to protest a US anti-dumping law, taking the unprecedented step of levying punitive tariffs on 15 US goods including steel.
The tariffs will cost US exporters more than 50 million dollars and be set at 15 percent from September 1, in line with similar moves by Canada and the European Union against the so-called Byrd Amendment.
The law enacted in 2000 redistributes US levies on dumping -- the selling of items abroad at lower prices than in the domestic market -- to the US companies that complained. Critics says this puts exporters to the United States at a disadvantage.
Trade Minister Shoichi Nakagawa said Japan had "been urging the United States repeatedly to abolish this (Byrd) amendment to avoid the countermeasures but we see an extremely low possibility that it will be abolished in the (US) current fiscal year" which ends in September 2005.
"We hope strongly that the United States will take this decision by Japan seriously and scrap the Byrd Amendment immediately," Nakagawa said in a statement.
It is the first known time that Japan, whose economy is built on exports, has imposed retaliatory sanctions on a country.
The goods subject to punitive tariffs include steel products, machinery parts, printing machines, forklift trucks and industrial belts.
With the retaliatory measures, Japan's imports from the United States could fall by up to 52.1 million dollars a year, the ceiling approved by the World Trade Organization (WTO), the ministry said.
The government decided to act against the law, named for US Senator Robert Byrd, after approval by its Council on Customs, Tariff, Foreign Exchange and Other Transactions.
Japan and six other countries -- Brazil, Canada, Chile, India, Mexico and South Korea -- as well as the EU took the issue to the WTO, which last year authorized sanctions amounting to 72 percent of the sums reaped by the US law.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda, the government spokesman, said the tariffs were imposed without considering the close political alliance between Japan and the United States.
"This is an independent matter," Hosoda told reporters.
"The fact that the Byrd amendment has been recognized by the WTO as a trade violation suggests there will be no effect on Japan-US relations," Hosoda said.
However, the United States has reportedly warned Japan that imposing sanctions over the Byrd Amendment could toughen the US stance on another thorny trade row -- beef.
Japan banned US beef imports in December 2003 after a case of mad cow disease was discovered in Washington state. Japan, the biggest importer of US beef before the ban, is under intense US pressure to resume the imports but has insisted it will wait until its scientists complete a review.
On Monday, Japan began to ease its blanket testing of young cattle for mad cow disease, removing a new stumbling block to resuming imports of US and Canadian beef.
Japanese automakers have also been treading carefully fearing a political backlash as they make inroads in the United States, where American icons General Motors and Ford are struggling badly.
The First Federal Revenue Law
On April 8, James Madison, once again a congressman from Virginia, addressed the House. He went right to the point. Congress, he said, must "remedy the evil" of "the deficiency in our Treasury." He argued that "[a] national revenue must be obtained," but not in a way "oppressive to our constituents." He then proposed that the House adopt legislation, virtually identical to the unimplemented Confederation tariff, imposing a five-percent tariff on all imports....
...A single, uniform tariff, he insisted, had two advantages. First, it could be imposed quickly, which was important because "the prospect of our harvest from the Spring importations is daily vanishing." Second, it was consistent with the principles of free trade ("commercial shackles," he said, "are generally unjust, oppressive, and impolitic")
Why do they let Robert Byrd author anything any more? The man needs to be put in a home with his white hood and cross burning kit.
Japan giving us the Byrd.
This is a chance to negotiate to correct the huge imbalance caused by them not buying from us.
The Japanese buy from us all right - but mostly raw commodities - which they then use in manufacturing - i.e. the Japanese buy raw American timber and make chairs in Japan, American scrap iron to turn to car bodies in Japan. We need tos ell them manufactured goos. How? I don't know.
The exact same thing China does.
If you are trying to sell consumer goods, then you should try to sell high quality goods. That's what Japanese consumers want, and are willing to pay quite well for them.
Marketing to Japanese consumers is probably easier in some ways than marketing to our own base.
For instance, there was a boom recently for cast-iron cookery in Japan, where Japanese ladies were buying them at a decent clip. If I were marketing our cast-iron cookery to the Japanese, I would have ignored the low-end completely, and focused only on trying to sell the very best quality items at a steep markup.
The money is in manufacturing.
Becareful saying that around here, soon the Free Traitor clique will come around and scream at you that we don't need to manufacturing anything more then green paper to be rich.
Say, Willie, finally you and I agree on something! A low and uniform tariff on everything is fine with me and probably a good idea. It is the attempts to manipulate the market through setting different rates for goods and subsidizing some industries with grants and quotas is what I oppose.
They also have an eye for economy.
There are a lot of American products that could be sold here, but if you try, very often bureaucrats will hold up approval to import until a Japanese company can tool up and start supplying whatever it is.
A little reading on the Byrd Ammendment shows that it should have never made it into law. It was put into the law in conference after different versions were passed in the house and the senate. It was in neither of the pills that were passed in the house or senate.
It funnels money from tarrifs to businesses that file complaints about dumping even if those companies aren't directly harmed by the dumping.
The tarrifs themselves are set to even out the trade imbalance, so the money the companies receive isn't offsetting the trade imbalance it's an additional government subsidy to the compaines that file complaints.
It also encourages frivilous complaints because you can only receive money if you file, and if you don't file and money is rewarded it's likely going to your competitors.
This ammendment is very bad for free trade. I support efforts to stop dumping and remove unfair trade advantages. However, this ammendment goes farther and giver an unfair advantage to US companies that abuse it.
Well said Skeptic. The amendment is a whiner's dream.
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