United States – Certain Methodologies and Their Application to Anti-Dumping Proceedings Involving China: Re-Litigating Through the Backdoor?

This paper presents a legal-economic analysis of the World Trade Organization's Article 22.6 arbitration report on the dispute over certain United States’ antidumping methodologies. The Arbitrator sought to quantify the damages suffered by China due to US non-compliance with an earlier ruling. The case covered 25 antidumping duty determinations for which at least one of three methodologies (weighted average-to-transaction; single rate presumption; and zeroing) was incorrectly applied. Damage calculations rely heavily on how the counterfactual is defined – what would have been the duty had it not been for the inconsistent measures? The Arbitrator deemed a zero-duty counterfactual to be appropriate, but the justifications were in our view weak and illustrate the danger of an Arbitrator essentially performing re-litigation of violations that may or may not have occurred in the administrative investigations. We conclude that the Arbitrator may have gone above and beyond its mandate in this determination.

Antidumping Duty Investigations and Decisions in the Global Forest Products Industry

Special tariffs have been increasingly adopted to protect domestic industries from potential injury caused by unfair international trade. In this study, a multinomial logit model is employed to examine the patterns and determinants of antidumping duty investigations in the global forest products industry. From 1995 to 2015, a total of 372 relevant cases are identified. The number of firms and the inclusion of unions as a petitioner generally improve the probability of an affirmative decision. The characteristics of petition countries have shown more impacts on the decisions than those of target countries. Developing countries have initiated a larger number of antidumping duty investigations in the global forest products industry, and furthermore, they are more inclined to adopt antidumping duties than developed countries. Countries with abundant forest resources and more forest products trade are more likely to make an affirmative decision. These findings will provide helpful information to industrial firms and government agencies in dealing with the challenges of global competition. Study Implications The findings reveal that getting more stakeholders involved in an antidumping duty investigation will increase the probability of trade intervention. The economic status in petition countries is the primary determinant of the decisions from antidumping duty investigations in the global forest products industry. Developing countries not only have initiated a large number of antidumping duty investigations in the forest products industry but also have been more inclined to adopt antidumping duties. Antidumping duty investigations offer an opportunity to countries with abundant forest resources and extensive forest products trade in case of unfair international competition.

Antidumping Investigations and the Pass-Through of Antidumping Duties and Exchange Rates: Comment

Blonigen and Haynes (2002) calculated that pass-through of antidumping duty estimates to U.S. pricing of 200% would be required to eliminate potential antidumping duties. However, this calculation was based on an error in interpretation of U.S. antidumping practice, that antidumping duties themselves are subtracted in an antidumping calculation. In fact there is no such subtraction, and a pass-through of 100% theoretically suffices to eliminate potential antidumping duties

Antidumping Duties in the Agriculture Sector: Trade Restricting or Trade Deflecting?

In this article we analyze whether US antidumping (AD) duties in the agricultural sector are effective in restricting trade. More specifically, does imposing an antidumping duty restrict imports of the named commodity or are imports deflected from countries named in the AD petition to countries not named in the petition? We find that AD duties have significantly restricted imports of agricultural commodities from countries named in the petition. However, our results also indicate that, unlike the manufacturing sector in the US, there was little trade diversion towards countries not named in the petition. Our results indicate that AD is a plausible protectionist policy in the agriculture sector.