Barbara Medrado, Summer Associate
On November 1, 2019, the WTO issued a decision authorizing China to impose retaliatory tariffs on up to $3.6 billion worth of U.S. goods because of the United States’ alleged failure to abide by the WTO’s rules on dumping. The decision arises out of a dispute initiated by China in which China claimed that the United States had not performed its dumping calculations in a manner that was consistent with its WTO obligations. The complaint was filed nearly six years ago and sought more than $7 billion in retaliatory duties for antidumping duties imposed on more than 40 categories of Chinese goods.
In the decision, the WTO panel found fault with two calculation methodologies the United States uses in antidumping investigations, including the United States “zeroing” methodology, which involves ignoring positive dumping margins in its overall dumping calculations, and the United States’ approach of treating multiple Chinese producers and exporters of a product as a single entity, rather than calculating specific margins for individual companies.
Seth Atkisson
Although they appear to have a cordial relationship, President Trump and Prime Minister Boris Johnson have occasionally disagreed over the impact of Brexit on a possible trade agreement between the two countries. On October 31, 2019, President Trump phoned into a British radio program hosted by Nigel Farage, an ally of the President and leader of the Brexit Party. The President suggested that the deal Prime Minister Johnson struck in mid-October with the European Union on Brexit might have an adverse impact on any possible deal between the two nations. For his part, Prime Minister Johnson’s office pushed back, insisting that the deal with the European Union allowed the U.K. to strike trade deals with the United States and other countries. Prime Minister Johnson’s spokesman added that trade talks with the U.S. had been positive.
