The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) says the United States will comply with the World Trade Organization (WTO) decision against a provision of its antidumping duties law called the Byrd Amendment.

USTR issued a January 16 statement just hours after the WTO Appellate Body released a decision in the case filed by the European Union (EU) and joined by 10 other WTO members.

At issue is an amendment passed into law over the objections of President Clinton as Congress struggled to adjourn before the 2000 elections. Senator Robert Byrd, senior Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, won agreement to his amendment during a conference between Senate and U.S. House of Representatives members to craft a compromise spending bill for 2001.

Byrd's provision directs payment of any antidumping duties to the companies that pursued the antidumping case rather than to the U.S. Treasury as before. Byrd represents West Virginia, where steel companies have received much of the payments so far.

USTR's statement called the decision "disappointing" but emphasized it did not jeopardize underlying U.S. antidumping laws and pledged to work with the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees on legislation to comply with it.

Statement from the Office of the United States Trade Representative in response to the report of the WTO Appellate Body released today in the dispute concerning the U.S. "Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000":

"We welcome the findings in today's report that the Act is consistent with the WTO requirements for the initiation of anti-dumping or countervailing duty investigations. We are still reviewing that report, but we note that since the dispute did not involve the underlying U.S. anti-dumping and countervailing duty laws, the United States will continue to vigorously enforce those laws to ensure that U.S. industries, farmers, and workers are not forced to compete with unfairly traded imports. We are however disappointed with the Appellate Body's findings concerning the funds disbursed under the Act.

"The United States has been a leader in supporting rules-based dispute settlement in the WTO. Therefore, in this case as in others, the United States will seek to comply with its WTO obligations. We are reviewing the report to assess the best compliance options and will discuss these with the Ways and Means and Finance Committees, and all other interested members of Congress."

Background

The Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000 ("CDSOA") was enacted in October 2000 as part of a Fiscal Year 2001 agriculture appropriations bill. As it was considered for the first time as part an appropriations bill, it was not approved by the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means Committees.

On September 10, 2001, a WTO dispute settlement panel was established at the request of Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, the European Union, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Mexico and Thailand to examine the consistency of the CDSOA with U.S. WTO obligations under the WTO Anti-dumping Agreement and the WTO Subsidies Agreement. The panel found against the United States on three of the five principal claims asserted by the complaining parties.

The United States appealed the panel's adverse findings to the WTO Appellate Body on October 18, 2002. Under WTO rules, the WTO Dispute Settlement Body ("DSB") will adopt its recommendations and rulings in the dispute within 30 days. The United States will seek agreement with the 11 complaining parties on the reasonable period of time for the United States to comply with the DSB recommendations and rulings.