Brussels, 16/01/2003 (Agence Europe) - With the appeal judgement published on Thursday, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has "definitively and clearly condemned" the most widely contested US legislation, namely that of the Bryd Amendment that has allowed the product of punitive surcharges to be passed onto US producers that were imposed on their foreign competitors found guilty of dumping or unfair subsidies (see EUROPE 14/07/02). Reacting straight away to this new, European Commissioner Pascal Lamy said that he was "pleased" and was expecting the USA to take swift action to abrogate this law which went against the spirit and rules of the WTO.
Attacked by 11 countries - including Canada, Australia, Japan, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, India and Korea shortly after its adoption, the 2000 law on compensation for continued dumping and maintaining subsidies was declared incompatible in all its essential provisions) with the Anti-dumping and anti-subsidy agreement by the WTO appeals body to which Washington turned to at the end of the year (see EUROPE 19/09/2002). According to the judges, this constitutes "specific action against dumping and subsidies" which in practice turns out to be double protection that has already been granted to US producers by adding compensation to taxes that affect their foreign competitors. Mr Lamy explained that this had been their view since the beginning.
This compensation, which is not envisaged in the GATT or other more recent agreements has risen to more than USD 500 million in total and were sent by the intermediary of the customs authorities which each year redistribute the amount of custom duties to the beneficiaries such as steel companies and those who were behind or helped develop trade protection procedures. The appeals body did, nonetheless, not wish to consider this text as an example of the bad faith of the USA in regard to their international obligations. It also confirmed the arbitration panel observation, that the Byrd Amendment is incompatible with some WTO provisions linked to support necessary for re-opening an investigation.
According to US sources at the US Senate, quoted by Reuters, the Bush Administration recently signalled its intention to abrogate the Byrd Amendment in the framework of its recommendation on the 2004 budget.