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
Hold it a second... you mean, these Bozos are threatening us with a tariff that could reach $28 Million??. Oh, man, let me check the petty cash drawer...
The neo-cons told us GATT and WTO would create an economic utopia, not a world where trade-wars are the norm.
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Remember that little nutty guy from Texas, Ross WhatsHisName....who WARNED US OF THE "GIANT SUCKING SOUND"...well if he had been elected President, we would not be having the trade wars now....and for the first time, this country would have been RUN LIKE A BUSINESS, certainly moreso than it is now. Presently, all we are is the money-source and dumping ground for the world...and the trade deficit proves it.
Yes, when considered as part of all our international trade it is small. But it is targeted at very specific products which means it has a very large impact on those specific industries making those products.
The industry I work in has been significantly impacted by this.
The Byrd amendment, while it's intent was good, was not put together with much foresight (under Clinton) IMHO and is perceived as a subsidy by the WTO. They apparently had no issue with the fines for dumping but they felt that giving the money collected as fines to those companies affected was a subsidy. If the money went to the communities or to the workers it may have been alright.
I was under the impression that the US had gone back to the drawing board to come up with something that achieved the same results but would not be perceived as a subsidy. Apparently that did not happen. This is not good.
A good overview of the issue can be found here
My understanding is that the Senate will not repeal it. They need to redirect the money collected from the fines away from the companies to some other entity to get the WTO to approve it. A compromise bill was put up by Olympia Snowe but has little or no support.
Well would you care to explain this contradiction then? I mean the FT's promised utopia in trade and economics yet it has not appeared to have played out that way. Oil's closer to $60 a barrel and has plenty of upside left. This is because of a cartel. Isn't the whole idea of a cartel against free trade? If it is, why doesn't the US Govt. take OPEC to the WTO? Hmmmm??? Oil at $50 a barrel is not good for the economy yet there appears to be no free-trade mechanism at work to correct the power of the cartel. Sign me confused at trying to figure out all the promises that were made in the '90s. When will that uptopia they promised get here? Or is it here and no one knows it?
No. And we don't export anything either.
U.S. exports $714.5 billion f.o.b. (2003 est.) CIA World Fact Book
Japan exports $447.1 billion f.o.b. (2003 est.) CIA World Fact Book
Germany exports $696.9 billion f.o.b. (2003 est.) CIA World Fact Book
China exports $436.1 billion f.o.b. (2003 est.) CIA World Fact Book
Hmmmm, imagine my surprise. Not only do we still make and export stuff, we're the largest exporter in the world.
Ahh Philip, you miss the point NAFTA and GATT are not treaties, they are "agreements" you see if you call it an agreement you don't have to have a supermajority, which would have been nigh onto impossible to get. I did learn something from the Klintoons.
>> Ahh Philip, you miss the point NAFTA and GATT are not treaties, they are "agreements" you see if you call it an agreement you don't have to have a supermajority, which would have been nigh onto impossible to get.
Unbelievable! I thought I was the only one outside of government who understood that point. Maybe there is hope for our nation after all. God Bless!
whether you think there was "authority" to sign the agreements, the president signed and he certainly has authority that the other countries rely on
most of those limits are company specific and are disappearing. There are almost no limits on foreign purchases of Canadian companies now.
Quote: China makes comsumer crap. Ask any engineer what they would do if trade with the EU in for instance machine tools were to be halted. Chaos
China just bought one of the premier and oldest machine tools company in Germany and are on a worldwide hunt to buy many more.
Nice try though. Just put up a bunch of figures! Tell me, how much of those numbers is cars and durable goods being exported? Hmmmmm????? Didn't think so.
I saw a true non BS chart of our exports from 2000- to 2004. Yes exports are up slightly since 2000. However they are up in 2 main areas which saved the day, agriculture (mostly lower paying jobs) and pharmecuticals.
Almost every other sector was down including computers, telecommuniactions, Hi-tech machine tools etc Basically alot of the higher paying manufacturing jobs.
There were some other manufactured goods that were up but for the most part they were down as a averge in this category.
But this is Free Trade, so is this the first Free Trade War ?
"Canada signed the U.S.-Canada Softwood Lumber Agreement, which limited exports to the United States from British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec and Ontario..."
" the agreement has been hard to enforce. Denny Scott, assistant director of the Portland-headquartered Western Council of Industrial Workers, a division of the Carpenters Union, said Canadian lumber companies have circumvented the agreement by calling lumber something else, such as "truss parts" or "pre-manufactured studs for electrical conduits." "They would put a notch in them and call them 'rafters,'" Scott said."
Gee, Neb, why don't you tell me how much is cars and durable goods. And then tell me why cars and durable goods, whether a large or small number, would change the fact that we're the largest exporter in the world.
And please, just put up a bunch of figures. With links, if you don't mind. Try not to make numbers up like your buddy superiorslots.
But will you have coffee?
Think about it...
I hold stock in at least 3 canroys, BPT, PVX, and PWI. They each claim that if their total non-Canadian stock ownership percentage goes above 48%, that they will sell your foreign stock shares for you to a Canadian buyer, with no choice for you as a U.S. citizen. Otherwise, they lose their rights to being incorporated as Canadian firms.
If that's changed, then it has been recent.
Tell me, you don't know? Shouldn't you try to gather some facts before forming an opinion? I can direct you to the numbers if you are truly interested, which I doubt.
I asked you to defend your statitics and you failed. Sorry, but that means you are just interested in truely defending your argument. Move on young man and bother someone else.
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