Posted on 04/01/2005 4:02:14 PM PST by nextthunder
EU to slap extra 15% duty on range of US goods
BRUSSELS: The European Union plans to slap an extra 15 percent import duty on a range of US goods over Washingtons failure to apply an international trade ruling against an anti-dumping law, the EU executive said on Thursday.
The duty would hit imports including paper, agricultural, textile and machinery products from May 1, and affect slightly less than $28 million in trade, the European Commission said.
The Commission took this latest step in the dispute over the Byrd Amendment in light of the continuing failure of the United States to bring its legislation in conformity with its international obligations, it said in a statement.
The level of EU retaliation would be revised annually to adjust to the level of damage caused to EU companies, it said. While the Commissions plan needed the formal approval of EU ministers, this was expected to be a formality, officials said, adding there were no plans to meet US officials before the additional duty came into force.
Neither was there a meeting planned between EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson and US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick until recently US trade representative who is scheduled to be in Brussels early next week, they said.
In November, the World Trade Organisation gave approval to the EU, Japan and others to apply an initial $150 million in trade sanctions after Washington failed to conform with a WTO ruling to repeal a subsidy programme for US companies.
Known as the Byrd Amendment, the programme distributes funds raised by anti-dumping duties on imports to the companies that initially requested government anti-dumping protection.
More than $1 billion has been doled out to US ball bearing, steel, seafood, candle and other companies under the Byrd Amendment over the past four years. Canada is expected to announce similar measures against the United States, its top trading partner, later on Thursday.
Mostly textiles: Most of the products to be hit with the EUs extra duty relate to textiles trousers and overalls made of synthetic fibres, for example. The only agricultural item is sweetcorn.
Five areas of stationery are also targeted, while in the machinery sector the products listed are crane lorries, along with spectacle frames and mountings. reuters
Free markets enrich the powerful and oppress the masses, which is what free-traders truly want. (It is also what Marx argued--the above is an example of circular reasoning that would implode the brain of any sentient being, other than the most ardent protectionist).
You are a Marxist?
I am a "free-trader." According to some here, that makes me a Marxist.
Sorry, I was confused. Yeah, clearly I agree with you on the subject. It's hard to believe in the capitalism and the free market and not also believe in free trade.
I've seen enough posts claiming libertarianism to be a form of Marxism! Strangely, there are also quite a few leftists who think themselves libertarian.
And if I invest the time and find it what will you do with that information? My time is precious, make it worth my while.
Now are you saying Reagan supported WTO,NAFTA and GATT? If I recall didn't he have alzhiemers big time about then?
Look genius, Marx was for it because it helped bring down the standard of living in the Western world. Obviously you don't live in California where we have been raped by unfettered immigration which is a direct byproduct of NAFTA. Marx's theory is coming true through out the western USA.
One can't have FT without a lower wage base to compete with China.
See what I mean? Circular reasoning. Someone who believes Marx's theory is "coming true" is calling me a Marxist. And we've come a long way from "cars and durable goods" to "unfettered immigration."
Interesting that they (some Freepers) agree with (what is apparently) Marx's theory that free trade, the free market and capitalism will ultimately fail, thus bringing about revolution and the rise of the proletariat. (If memory serves, and it does, Castro himself, after the fall of the dot.coms, repeated exactly that quote by Marx). It makes one wonder also if those freepers are advocates of Central Planning. The assumption is that they are.
Beyond the fact that such point of view, if truly conservative, has unsettling implications for conservative doctrines of freedom and liberty, one would think that history had done a fair job by now of invalidating Marxism.
At any rate, I now understand why F.A. Hayek, famous proponent of individual freedom and personal liberty, wrote an essay entitled "Why I am not a conservative."
Although, truthfully, it is my opinion (here I agree with Thomas Sowell) that while the term "conservative" has not yet been adequately defined, it is fairly certain that believers in Marxist doctrine are not conservative, whatever else they may be.
Meanwhile the French are arm-twisting a SE ASisan country that supplies cheap shrimp to the world. If they want to continue doing that to EU countries, they'll have to buy plastic planes from Airbus.
And frankly, there is NO reason for this. The supply is huge.
Actually, the NAFTA that Bush elder negotiated and Clinton pushed through was far different from the FT pact Reagan was negotiating. Nice try though.
Well duh, I asked you numerous questions and you didn't give me the answers. you listed one set of data and failed to answer the othe questions. You just engaged in personal attacks. What do you expect?
Trust me, I expect nothing from you.
He doesn't have the time.
Ah yes, the world according to the WTO:
US Subsidies = bad; Eu Subsidies = OK
Face it, the EU sunsidizes EVERY industry over here. The US, when it tries to allieviate the burden that it's domestic industry faces due to these subsidies is REPEATEDLY told by the EuWTO that we are not adhering to agreements.
The US has pretty much given up soveriegnty on trade matters, and likely will in other areas as well. It's long overdue that we cancel ALL of these agreements and restore the Constitutional Republic.
I seriously doucbt that I will ever see that day . . .
Meanwhile the French are arm-twisting a SE ASisan country that supplies cheap shrimp to the world
......................................................
How so?
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