*EPF205 10/12/2004
House Passes Bill Repealing 1916 Dumping Law WTO Ruled Illegal
(Normal trade relations for Armenia, Laos among hundreds of provisions) (740)

By Bruce Odessey
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- The House of Representatives has given final passage to a bill that would repeal a dumping law that was ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and would extend permanent normal trade relations to Armenia and Laos.

To become law the bill would have to be passed by the Senate and signed by the president. Whether the Senate will consider the bill when Congress returns November 16 from its election recess is not known.

Most of the 299-page bill, passed by the House late October 8 without debate, comprises hundreds of tariff suspensions on imports of goods not produced domestically and traded in small volumes.

Repeal of the 1916 antidumping law was slipped into the final version of the miscellaneous tariffs bill by House and Senate negotiators even though neither chamber had earlier passed such a provision.

The House Judiciary Committee had approved the provision, however, and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick had urged its passage.

The WTO had ruled against the 1916 antidumping law, which was challenged by the European Union (EU) and Japan. Under the law, never actually used from 1916 until the 1990s, U.S. companies can sue foreign producers for triple damages for dumping goods on the U.S. market with the intent of injuring U.S. industry.

To date no plaintiff has ever collected damages under the 1916 law. In May, however, a U.S. federal court upheld a jury verdict ordering a Japanese newspaper press manufacturer to pay its U.S. rival more than $30 million, triple the damages from dumping as calculated by the jury. That case remains under appeal.

The provision in the miscellaneous tariffs bill would repeal the 1916 law but would not overturn any case already decided or pending under the law. Whether Japan or the EU would accept such a nonretroactive change is not known.

The WTO had already authorized retaliation by the EU against any final judgment ordered under the law against an EU company.

Another provision of the miscellaneous tariffs bill would grant permanent normal trade relations for Armenia. Normal trade relations (NTR), otherwise known as most-favored-nation treatment, prohibit discrimination among a country's trading partners. Armenia has had temporary NTR, approved year to year by the president.

The bill would also extend NTR to Laos, bringing into force a 1997 U.S.-Laos trade agreement. Laos remains one of only four countries worldwide and the only least-developed country to which the United States does not extend NTR.

Miscellaneous tariff bills typically pass each session of Congress routinely, but this one was held up over a succession of issues for three years. One senator from a southern textile-producing state delayed Senate action, for example, until he achieved a change requiring clearer country-of-origin labeling for socks.

Following are some other provisions of the bill:

-- A provision that would correct a mistake in the Trade Act of 2002 that inadvertently raised duties on Andean handbags, luggage, flat goods, work gloves and leather wearing apparel under the Andean Trade Preferences Act (ATPA).

-- A provision that would clarify the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), extending retroactively to October 2000 duty-free treatment for collars and cuffs.

-- A provision that would temporarily prohibit U.S. imports of archaeological, cultural and other rare items from Iraq to prevent illegal shipment of such antiquities.

-- In line with a 2001 international agreement to eliminate testing of wine for reasons other than health and safety, a provision that would amend U.S. regulatory law concerning cellar treatment for both domestic and imported natural wine.

The EU has refused to accept U.S. wine-making practices and threatens not to import any U.S. wines that do not meet EU production standards after 2005 unless the two sides negotiate an agreement before then. Congressional negotiators have indicated they intended this provision as leverage in U.S.-EU negotiations, which have achieved no agreement so far.

-- A provision that would require the U.S. customs agency in the Department of Homeland Security to establish integrated border inspection areas along the U.S.-Canadian border. In these areas U.S. customs officers could inspect vehicles before they entered the United States from Canada, and Canadian customs officials could inspect vehicles before they entered Canada from the United States.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

Return to Public File Main Page

Return to Public Table of Contents