CITAC calls for end of zeroing

CITAC calls for end of zeroing The Consuming Industries Trade Action Coalition on Thursday called for the Obama administration to end the use of “zeroing” in antidumping cases following a World Trade Organization decision that use of the methodology runs contrary to U.S. WTO obligations.
   CITAC said this is the seventh time the WTO has definitively ruled against the U.S. use of zeroing.
   “This WTO Appellate Body ruling unequivocally states that the continued use of zeroing by the U.S. government in dozens of cases involving imports from the European Union violates the WTO Antidumping Agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade,” CITAC General Counsel Lewis Leibowitz said in a statement.
   'Zeroing artificially inflates dumping margins by disregarding “negative” dumping comparisons (where the U.S. sales price exceeds the foreign “normal value”) when calculating an aggregate dumping margin for a product,' CITAC said. 'In effect, the negative comparisons are treated as though they were equal to zero. The resulting antidumping duties overtax American consumers by inflating the duties and thus domestic market prices.'
   CITAC Executive Director Jon Wadsworth said that zeroing would hinder the U.S. economy from rebounding quickly.
   “At a time when policymakers are searching for solutions to stimulate the economy, there is simply no justification for our government’s continued use of a dumping methodology that adds to U.S. manufacturers’ burdens,” he said. “Soon our trading partners will have full authority to penalize millions of dollars of U.S. exports via retaliatory tariffs, placing thousands of jobs at risk. On top of that, U.S. manufacturers selling here and abroad are made less competitive by the artificially inflated dumping duties placed on vital inputs by the use of zeroing.” ' Eric Johnson