NAFTA rules ITC hasn't proven softwood injury
Friday, Sep. 5, 2003
By TERRY WEBER and ROMA LUCIW
A North American Free Trade Agreement panel has ruled that the U.S. International Trade Commission had not proven Canadian softwood exports injured the U.S. industry, Ottawa said Friday.
The panel gave the U.S. ITC 100 days to to issue a new determination.
"Another NAFTA panel has ruled in favour of Canada," International Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew said on a conference call with reporters on Friday.
"The panel is remanding the U.S. ITC to their homework again," he noted, adding that the ITC had not only failed to provide a reasonable explanation for its finding, it had also failed to ensure that its determination was based on the facts.
Reading from the NAFTA report, Mr. Pettigrew said NAFTA was "particularly troubled by the extensive lack of analysis undertaken by the commission" to prove that that American companies could be injured by Canadian lumber trade practices.
"We are more confident than ever about our legal case," he said.
The NAFTA panel has instructed the ITC to clarify a number of issues, according to wire reports Friday.
"Canada's steady stream of victories at NAFTA and the WTO prove that the U.S. is completely ignoring the evidence and the very bedrock of their case is now gone," the Canadian Lumber Trade Alliance said in a statement.
On May 22, the ITC found that the U.S. softwood lumber industry was "threatened" with material injury by reason of alleged subsidized and dumped imports of softwood lumber from Canada.
This injury determination followed subsidy and dumping determinations by the U.S. Department of Commerce and resulted in the imposition of U.S. countervailing and anti-dumping duties.
Canada challenged this threat of injury determination before the World Trade Organization and under NAFTA.
Canadian lumber producers have been paying anti-subsidy and anti-dumping duties totalling 27.2 per cent on all U.S.-bound softwood timber since last May.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that the U.S. Commerce Department has recalculated antidumping duties on Canadian softwood, adjusting the average rate down slightly to 8.38 per cent from 8.43.
Mr. Pettigrew said he was "not impressed but not surprised" by the move. Canada will continue to fight the lumber battle through legal challenges, he said.
"We are strengthened every day by every one of these decisions."
Mr. Pettigrew, who departs Friday to lead the Canadian delegation in next's weeks round of global free-trade talks in Cancun, Mexico, said he will have the chance to compared notes on the dispute with Grant Aldonas, the U.S. undersecretary for international trade.
In Cancun, Canada's priority will be agriculture, he said. "We want the total elimination of export subsidies and the substantial reduction of the production subsidies."
Canada is a major advocate of WTO member countries eliminating all forms of export subsidies, as first decided when the current round of global trade talks was launched in Doha, Qatar, in November, 2001.
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