Fantasea said:
You may wish to brush up on your civics.
The US is no more bound by the WTO than it is bound by the UN. The Legislative Branch, specifically the Senate, which is responsible for treaties, would never permit the US to become subservient to any entity.
House Members Oppose WTO Trade Rules Renegotiation
Antidumping laws defended as essential in free market
Members of the House of Representatives argue that the U.S. delegation to the World Trade Organization (WTO) ministers' meeting in Doha, Qatar, should resist attempts to reopen negotiations on antidumping and other unfair-trade rules.
In November 6 debate on the House floor, members of both parties supported a non-binding resolution that would express House opposition to such renegotiation. A vote on the resolution was postponed.
Representative Phil English, a Republican from a steel-producing district in Pennsylvania, defended U.S. unfair-trade laws as legitimate under the existing WTO agreement on trade rules; that agreement emerged as a fair compromise in earlier negotiation, he argued.
English said some of the countries pressing for renegotiation are those found to be dumping on the U.S. market. He said others were countries eager to slow down the WTO process because of reluctance to face other difficult issues.
Representative Sander Levin, a Democrat from an auto-producing district in Michigan, said trade remedy laws are essential to a free-market system.
"The rules against dumping, the antidumping laws, are critical to ensuring that market distortions in one country do not undermine another through their exports, through their dumping below cost," Levin said.
Trade ministers from nearly 140 countries are scheduled to meet in Doha November 9-13 with the intent of launching a new round of trade negotiations.
Following are excerpts from the House debate as published in the November 6 Congressional Record:
Mr. ENGLISH. Madam Speaker, the WTO negotiations in Qatar later this week are going to be enormously important. They are going to create an opportunity to move the world trading system in a direction which will allow us to provide not only freer trade but also fairer trade. We see an opportunity for a new agenda to emerge for the WTO out of this discussion, a new round which we think will yield positive results for America as well as the balance of our trading partners.
But as we move forward and see that agenda take shape, it is very important that the United States Congress weigh in particularly on one issue which should not be included on that agenda and has been long negotiated and long established. Here I am referring to the antidumping code.
As we engage in a new round of global trade talks, we do not want to see a reopening of the antidumping and countervailing duty laws which have already been negotiated to a conclusion through the WTO.
The history, Madam Speaker, is quite clear on this point. In a previous round, we had an opportunity to negotiate and to compromise, and all parties signed off on an antidumping code that establishes clear parameters by which domestic antidumping protections can be established, administered and moved forward fairly to all parties concerned.
We in America have maintained our antidumping laws well within those parameters, and we have every right to do so. We have not only an opportunity but also an obligation to maintain strong laws on the books that allow us to provide for a level playing field for American workers and American companies and insist that international standards be followed when it comes to trade practices. We have an opportunity and an obligation, in short, to police our own markets, and that is all that we have done.
I went to the Seattle WTO conclave, which unfortunately did not yield a new round of talks, and at Seattle my role, as part of the official delegation, was to argue against a rising chorus of our trading partners who wanted to reopen the antidumping code, who saw the new round as an opportunity to water down antidumping and countervailing duties, who saw this as an opportunity to open up American markets in a way that would provide us with few options if faced with unfair trading practices.
The Seattle Round never materialized, but this weekend we have an opportunity in Qatar to see a new round initiated. Once again, some of our trading partners have come forward. All too often those trading partners, which have a history of having been guilty of dumping on our markets, have been found guilty in the past of having engaged in unfair trading practices as well as some partners who, we suspect, may simply want to muddy the waters, who do not want to go forward on some of the issues that are difficult to them, so they want to reintroduce other issues to slow down the process.
So far, the Bush administration has adopted a strong position, and I salute them. They have had the courage to say that the antidumping code has already been negotiated and it should be left off the agenda of the new round. I salute them for their firmness on this point, and I propose that the House, through this resolution, join them in offering strong support for the notion that the antidumping laws should not be included as part of this WTO round.
As I said, some countries found guilty in the past of dumping in the U.S. market are desperately trying to reopen the U.S. antidumping and countervailing duty laws despite the best efforts of the Bush administration. In my view, this would be counterproductive for the United States.
I urge my colleagues in the House to take the same bold stance as the Bush administration by supporting this resolution today. I urge my colleagues to put the House on record as strongly opposed to including the antidumping and countervailing duty laws on the agenda of a new WTO negotiating round. This would send a clear and unambiguous message to our trading partners, we will not tolerate unfair trading practices, we will provide a level playing field for our workers, and we will not leave our markets vulnerable to predatory trade practices.
Our antidumping and countervailing duty protections are, in my view, absolutely essential for allowing this country to participate in the world trading system; they are important for policing our markets, and they are very important for ensuring that our partners' trade practices conform to the international standards that they have agreed to and that they play by the rules.
This resolution moves in the direction of providing better fair trade for American workers and for American companies at a time when we are clearly entering a recession. I hope it will enjoy strong support. It already enjoys strong bipartisan support. I want to thank my colleagues for that.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. LEVIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
(Mr. LEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. LEVIN. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this resolution ....
I do support it because trade remedy laws are critical to U.S. workers and farmers and industry. They are a central pillar of a rule-based system. They were negotiated in the Uruguay Round. It was a product of hard negotiations, of lengthy discussions. The gentleman from New York (Mr. HOUGHTON) and I were able to be there at the end of those discussions, and I can say firsthand that it was very much give and take. There was final agreement. We should resist efforts to unravel that agreement.
Trade remedies are really part of a free market system. A free market system means that one party should not rig the market to their advantage, to distort a free market to their advantage and the disadvantage of another. The rules against dumping, the antidumping laws, are critical to ensuring that market distortions in one country do not undermine another through their exports, through their dumping below cost.
The countervailing duty provisions try to assure that one country does not gain an unfair advantage through large subsidies. Subsidies undercut a free market. The safeguard rules are there to make sure that if there is a major surge, a country is not left without, as the word connotes, a "safeguard." And so I think that these trade remedies, negotiated through hard discussions with give and take, should not be opened up.
What has happened in recent years, though, is that the WTO rules have been undercut by some unfortunate decisions of WTO dispute-settlement bodies. What they have done, in a word, is to misinterpret in some cases the actual language and to impose new and never-agreed-to obligations on WTO members. We do not want to make it worse by now reopening this very language which was worked out through such hard discussions ....
I comment next on the ministerial language that has been drafted. It is not acceptable. Essentially what it does is to commit the parties to a renegotiation. It may not say that directly, but that is the implication.
It is the implication because, unlike for other provisions where there is first a discussion and then a decision on negotiation, the way the present draft language reads, there would essentially be a commitment to renegotiation, and that is not acceptable.
I want to close by indicating that while I support this resolution, and I very much support it, I do not want anyone to think that it is a substitute for clear language in any Fast Track/TPA [trade promotion authority] bill. It is important that any Fast Track/TPA have, in unambiguous principal negotiating objectives, a statement that there will not be, as far as the U.S. is concerned, any renegotiation of the language in the Uruguay Round document that we negotiated it in good faith, and we will not agree to renegotiate it now.
