Important news (only slightly OT):
<Thursday June 3, 7:42 pm Eastern Time
Clinton lamb decision could slip to Saturday - USTR
WASHINGTON, June 3 (Reuters) - U.S. lamb producers may have to wait until Saturday to find out whether President Bill Clinton will curb imports from Australia and New Zealand, as they have requested.
Despite earlier expectations that Clinton would announce his decision on Friday, there is a chance the decision may not come until Saturday, said Jay Ziegler, a spokesman for the U.S. Trade Representative's Office.
Earlier this year, the U.S. International Trade Commission voted 6-0 that low-priced imports from Australia and New Zealand posed a threat to domestic producers. The panel also unanimously recommended four years of import protection, but differed on how that should be structured.
The ITC delivered its report to Clinton on April 5, starting a 60-day countdown toward a decision on Friday.
But depending how late Clinton makes his decision, an announcement may not come until Saturday, government and industry officials said.
Both Australia and New Zealand have argued that import restraints are unjustified because neither countries subsidizes its domestic lamb production or its exports.
But under U.S. trade law and import ''safeguard provisions'' of the World Trade Organization, a domestic industry doesn't have to prove unfair trade to ask for protection, said Paul Rosenthal, a lawyer with Collier, Shannon, Rill and Scott, the law firm representing the U.S. lamb industry.
Instead, it only has to prove that imports threaten to damage the domestic industry, Rosenthal said.
Clinton is widely expected to approve some form of import relief, but the degree of protection remains uncertain.
Australia and New Zealand offered to work with U.S. industry to build U.S. demand for lamb, which is among the lowest in the world. However, U.S. producers rejected that offer in favor of import constraints. |
