The hottest interpretation of WTO trade remedy mea

Interpretation of WTO "trade remedy measures"

first, strategic trade policy

strategic trade policy refers to a strategic behavior that the government changes or maintains the interests of incompletely competitive enterprises through some intervention means, so that international trade changes in the direction that is conducive to the country to obtain the maximum benefits. There are two reasons for implementing the strategic trade policy. One is the existence of "economic rent". In some ways, a government can turn the monopoly profits (economic rents) originally belonging to enterprises in other countries into the profits of domestic enterprises, or the welfare of consumers, or the income of the government. A government can also take measures to make its enterprises obtain more and more economic rents. Second, the external economy. If the development of a department is conducive to the development of other departments or industries in the economy, and this department has no way to benefit from the development of other industries, it is an external industry, and its development should be supported, because its contribution to the economy should be compensated. The reason why externality has become a focus of foreign trade policy is that when foreign governments support an industry with externality, this industry will develop and occupy the international market, and domestic related industries will be difficult to develop. At this time, not only domestic exports will be hit, but also beneficial technology spillovers will not happen

in practice, the implementation of a strategic trade policy is often difficult to clearly distinguish the two purposes of the above strategic trade policy. When the government imposes higher tariffs on foreign products, the domestic government can turn part of the profits of foreign producers into domestic income, and at the same time, it will also promote the development of domestic related industries. Because its environmental protection and sustainability are the key to the sustainable development of the company. Secondly, the relevant agreements of the WTO restrict the use of traditional strategic trade policy measures. The continuous decline of tariff levels and the prohibition of government subsidies make it more and more difficult for countries to use tariffs to implement strategic trade policies. Since the signing of the general agreement on Tariffs and trade in 1947, a total of eight rounds of multilateral trade negotiations have been held under its organization, and the import tariffs of all parties have decreased significantly. The average tariff of developed countries fell from about 40% in 1947 to about 4%, and the average tariff of developing countries also fell to about 13%. With the continuous decline of import tariffs, it is increasingly difficult for countries to implement strategic trade policies by imposing tariffs. In the Tokyo round of negotiations that began in 1973 under the general agreement on Tariffs and trade, the contracting parties paid more attention to non-tariff barriers, reached an agreement principle for government procurement and procurement contracts provided by other public institutions, stipulated the implementation discipline of technical standards, certificates and their inspection systems as trade barriers, stipulated that import licensing procedures cannot be used as a means to stop trade, and proposed to establish a fair, unified Fair customs valuation system. In this negotiation, the participating countries also signed agreements on subsidies and countervailing measures. With the prohibition of subsidies, countries have fewer means to implement strategic trade policies

Third, the trade remedy measures of WTO are becoming a new way to implement strategic trade policies

while limiting the traditional strategic trade policy measures, WTO has created the soil for the emergence of new strategic trade policy measures. According to the relevant agreements of WTO, anti-dumping and countervailing are remedial measures against unfair trade. Article VI of the general agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994 points out that dumping should be condemned when the products of one Contracting Party are imported to another contracting party at a lower than normal value, which causes material damage or threat of material damage to the relevant industries already established in the importing contracting party, or materially hinders the establishment of relevant industries in this contracting party. Article VI of the general agreement also makes relevant provisions on countervailing, pointing out that countervailing duty should be understood as a special tax levied to offset any subsidies or subsidies directly or indirectly given to manufacturing, production or export; The amount of countervailing duty shall not exceed the estimated amount of allowances or subsidies directly or indirectly given to such products when they are manufactured, produced or exported in the country of origin or the country of export. Safeguard measures are trade remedy measures permitted by the WTO to be used without unfair trade. Article 19 of the general agreement has made basic provisions on the use of safeguard measures. In order to strengthen the constraints on the implementation of various measures to prevent members from abusing these measures, the WTO has signed various agreements, including the agreement on anti dumping, the agreement on subsidies and countervailing measures, and the agreement on safeguards

unfortunately, the above agreements and agreements do not seem to be able to stop the abuse of these trade remedy measures. It is the abuse of these measures that makes them not only trade remedy measures, but also a means used by some governments to implement strategic trade policies. The basic purpose of strategic trade policy is to change the competition results in international trade through government behavior, so as to expand the profits of domestic enterprises, transform the excess profits of enterprises in other countries into the income of cost countries, promote domestic exports, or support the development of domestic related industries; If anti-dumping, countervailing and safeguard measures are properly applied, the above objectives can be fully achieved. When some domestic enterprises of a country cannot get profits due to the huge pressure of imported products, these enterprises can appeal against anti-dumping or safeguard measures. Originally, there are objective criteria for determining whether dumping, dumping margin and material injury are constituted, but in practice, it is difficult for governments of all countries to achieve complete objectivity. The most typical example in this regard is anti-dumping against China. Since China is not yet a market economy country in the view of WTO members, when determining the normal value of China's export commodities, it will not take the domestic price of China's relevant products and raw materials as the standard, but choose a second country with market economy as a substitute, and calculate the normal value based on the price of the same products and raw materials in the substitute country. In the history of China's anti-dumping, India, Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea, and even the United States, Australia and other countries have been selected as China's substitutes. Some of these countries' per capita income is dozens of times that of China. The prices of related products and raw materials have been affected by the Sino US trade war on the paper industry. The core competitiveness of raw materials into paper mills is very high, This will make the calculated normal value of Chinese products very high, and it is easy to judge that Chinese products are dumping. From January 1st, 1995 to December 31st, 2002, a total of 2160 anti-dumping cases occurred worldwide, including 308 anti-dumping cases against Chinese products, accounting for 14.26% of the total. This proportion is the highest among all countries. Once a country imposes high tariffs on imported products through anti-dumping, countervailing or safeguard measures, it can achieve the purpose of increasing the market share and profits of relevant domestic industries, and at the same time, convert part of the profits of the export enterprises of the other country into the tariff income of the importing country. If a country links these trade remedies with industrial policies, it will be able to achieve the purpose of supporting key industries

moreover, combining these trade remedy measures with other strategic measures against the WTO will achieve better results. The United States' connection of steel safeguard measures with the use of the WTO dispute settlement mechanism is an example. In March, 2002, the U.S. government proposed a three-year Steel Safeguard Measure on the pretext that the import growth of foreign products had damaged the domestic industry, imposing an additional tariff of 8% - 30% on 10 categories of steel products imported from abroad. The economic interests of various steel products exporting countries have suffered huge losses, which directly led to various countries and regions to take protective measures against steel products one after another. In response to this unreasonable practice, some countries, including China, put forward the request for consultation to the United States under the framework of the WTO dispute settlement mechanism, and entered the expert group procedure of the dispute settlement mechanism when the consultation was unsuccessful. On July 11, 2003, the expert panel of the WTO Dispute Settlement Body ruled that it was illegal for the United States to impose high tariffs on imported steel products. The report clearly points out that there is no conclusive and sufficient reason for the decision of the United States to impose a surcharge on steel products from relevant countries in order to protect its steel industry. Once the ruling of the WTO dispute settlement body was announced, the United States immediately said it would continue to appeal. The spokesman of the U.S. trade representative said that the special safeguard measures do not violate the WTO rules, and many countries have done so. The imposition of special tariffs on imported products has been effective. The domestic industries of the United States are launching unprecedented mergers and structural adjustments to enhance competitiveness, which is not contrary to the commitment of the United States to international trade. He also reminded people that the special tariffs imposed by the United States are decreasing by 20% every year, The first tax reduction has been implemented. This means that although the United States loses the lawsuit, other countries still have no way to obtain the legitimate right to export steel to the United States. Only when the appellate body finally finds that the United States' practice violates the relevant WTO agreements and regulations, it is possible to force the United States to release