Alliance for American Manufacturing Report Adds Heat to US WTO Criticisms
U.S. trade remedies have been the “disproportionate focus” of World Trade Organization dispute panels, which are undermining the ability of the U.S. and other nations to effectively enforce their trade remedy laws, a report by the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) states (here). The report, unveiled by Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio (here), was released on March 1, the same day that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative submitted its annual report to Congress that extensively challenged the competency of the WTO dispute resolution process (see 1703010028). “The WTO has found at least one violation of WTO rules in over 90 percent of the trade remedy disputes it has ruled on to date – a remarkable record of violations given that the WTO rules were negotiated by the members themselves,” the AAM report says. “Since 1995, the WTO has issued 38 separate decisions against U.S. trade remedy measures, nearly five times the number of such decisions issued against any other member.”
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There is “mounting concern” that WTO dispute settlement panels and the WTO Appellate Body aren’t honoring “key founding principles” of the organization, such as the legitimacy of trade remedies as well as limitations that WTO members put on the dispute settlement system, the report says. AAM said that the track record of WTO dispute resolution panels doesn’t bode well for the U.S. in the WTO complaint that China filed on Dec. 12 challenging the U.S.’s treatment of the country as a “non-market” economy in antidumping cases (see 1612120019). Among the report’s recommendations for a response by U.S. policymakers are: serious consideration of “whether and how” to implement any adverse WTO enforcement decisions, depending on how the determinations would deplete U.S. enforcement efforts; forming a coalition with other WTO members concerned about dispute settlement trends; and refusing to agree to the nomination of WTO Appellate Body members who have failed to adhere to WTO review standards and shown a willingness to interpret WTO agreements rather than merely apply them. The WTO didn’t comment.