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Publication Date

2017

Abstract

In the current U.S. political environment free trade
has become a polarized topic. Much of the American
public is concerned over job loss perceived to be caused
by free-trade. As a result, pressures have risen,
especially from the U.S. steel industry, to protect U.S.
industries from dumped goods. Trade remedy laws,
such as antidumping measures, are popular policies
utilized as countermeasures against "unfair trade"
practices. With bipartisansupport, the American Trade
Enforcement Effectiveness Act (ATEEA) was passed
and signed into law by President Obama on June 29,
2015 amending the Tariff Act of 1930. Specifically,
with regard to antidumping, it altered the standard
used by the U.S. International Trade Commission
(Commission) to find that a domestic industry has been
materially injured by a dumped product. Most
importantly, the ATEEA disallows the Commission
from finding a domestic industry has been materially
injured merely because the industry has been recently
profitable. Two questions raised by the passage of the
ATEEA are analyzed: (1) have the changes affected the
Commission's final decisions in antidumpingpetitions,
particularly those involving the steel industry, and (2)
is it likely that the World Trade Organization will find
the changes to violate the General Agreement on

Tariffsand Trade (GATT) or the Agreement on
Implementation of Article VI of the General Agreement
on Tariffs and Trade (Antidumping Agreement)? The
answer to the first question is clearly yes. The
Commission has issued a significantly higher number
of material injury findings in dumping investigations
than it did before the enactment. This is especially true
of complaints brought by the U.S. Steel industry,
indicating that the ATEEA has been frequently used as
a weapon of the U.S. steel industry against dumped
steel. Despite the significant effect of this change on the
Commission's decisions, however, it is unlikely that
these changes violate the GATT or the Antidumping
Agreement.

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