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 Washington’s 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 Commission’s 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 EU’s 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 trade is fine, but that's not what's going on when you have China and India (among others) artificially inflating the value of the U.S. Dollar (which thereby lowers the price of their exports to the U.S.) on the one hand, and massive Airbus subsidies in the EU on the other.
I'm totally confused. The neo-cons told us GATT and WTO would create an economic utopia, not a world where trade-wars are the norm. How did this happen? Prices of goods were supposed to decrease, not increase. I remember all the great things that were going to happen. What the heck happened?
Then watch the Euro fur fly.
The EU is doomed to failure. The cause of its demise will be centralized over-regulation, applying the same cookie cutter solution (a.k.a. French Socialism, which is economically breaking the back of France) to all its member states. In its present form, it is NOT going to work. Yet I hear that if I expressed such a view within the EU, I could be charged with a crime.
Charged with a crime?
Um...not in my country.
I'm in Ireland - and we are part of the EU. But our economy is one of the strongest in Europe. Mainly due to free market initiatives and a pro-inward investment policies.
Ireland is doing very well at the moment. The Celtic Tiger economy that we enjoyed through the late nineties, slowed slightly at the start of the new millenium..but even with further EU expansion, Ireland is holding her own.
Imagine, a little tiny island out-pacing France and Germany? Well, it has happened. And I'm praying those bastards (pardon, my French) don't try to regulate us back into recession!
We shoudl make them pay double with our own tarrifs. Lets see who runs out of jobs first !
Yes, this sucks but. . . " affect slightly less than $28 million in trade". That's negligible compared our overall trade.
Brilliant. Lets see how many more threads we get from Willie Green if we embark on your course of economic mutually assured destruction. But hey, American jobs aren't important, as long as they're in export industries, right?
Doesn't the dollar's drop against the Euro have the same effect? Besides, let the Euro-bozos tax themselves into oblivion. One of these days their population may wake up (or emigrate to somplace with a higher standard of living like say, Mexico).
Uhmm, have you looked at the EU/US trade imbalance ? It's about 4 to 1 in the EU's favor. Let the Arabs prop up their socialism, Im gettin tired of it.
So you have a problem with us buying BMW's? And you want to take your frustration out on somebody working at Caterpillar? Doesn't sound like much of a plan.
Screw the EU, China is where it's at. The EU will implode on itself in the next 10 years. We are headed in the same direction.
In November, the WTO gave Canada and the other co-complainants the authority to retaliate. The other countries involved include Mexico, Japan, India and Brazil.
Unless Congress repeals the law, the case may become the most damaging ever at the WTO when the U.S. begins distributing tariffs collected on Canadian lumber, worth $4 billion a year. Japan, the economy most affected by the Byrd Amendment, has the right to impose customs duties worth 125 billion yen ($116 million), the biggest sanctions awarded to Japan in a dispute.
President George W. Bush called for a repeal of the Byrd Amendment in his budget proposal to Congress on Feb. 7, saying that ending the law could save the U.S. Treasury $1.6 billion in the next fiscal year.
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So, unless the Byrd amendment is repealed, many nations, not just the EU, will be retaliating. It would be prudent not to irritate the Japanese, with their vast holdings of US Treasuries - which they can dump any time they please. The posted article states that President Bush is in favor of repeal. Sounds like prompt action is needed - unless he wants to get into a trade war against the whole world --- at the conclusion of which we are likely to be even more a beggar nation than we are now - and finally shocked into seeing it.
Is repeal legislation before Congress now?
Trade war!!! Bring it on!
I already have 3 coffee machines, ain't got any more use for any more euro junk!
"But our economy is one of the strongest in Europe. Mainly due to free market initiatives and a pro-inward investment policies. "
And those are probably initiatives from within the Irish Republic. Which is good! The bureaucrats in Brussels though I don't trust, my perception from this side of the pond is that they are a bit "out of touch".
As far as the objecting to the EU in its present bloated bureaucrat form being a crime, that I believe is in closer proximity to Belgium, France, what have you. My view that the EU will have major problems is not on "nationalist" grounds (since I'm an outsider in the U.S.A.), but more economic grounds - hence my screen name.
Barring over-regualation, Ireland and the Eastern European member nations should do quite well. Its up to Germany, France, Belgium, and the rest of "Old Europe" whether or not they get left behind. Germany during the last years of Helmut Kohl's administration almost had the opportunity to kick start their economy if the upper legislative house passed a major tax cut and spending reduction almost on the scale that Reagan pursued.
Any professional economist will tell you that if the EU puts a 15% tariff on US goods, it has the same exact effect as if the US put a 15% tariff on EU goods.
I'm not sure you knew that economics backs you up, but it does!
The basic problem is that the WTO does not appear to be a neutral, objective organization. Almost every time it lays down a judgment, the U.S. seems to get the short end of the stick.
We put up with that sort of unbalanced trade agreements for decades, but we can no longer afford to do so. Indeed it was foolish of us ever to agree to it, because it established unfair practices and bad habits.
Hey Europe, remember what Hawley-Smoot did to the American economy....
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