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Strategies & Market Trends : Strictly: Drilling II -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Frank Pembleton who wrote (9874)	3/24/2002 6:59:02 PM
From: Cogito Ergo Sum	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 36161

thestar.com Let's protect, not appease, in lumber row David Crane THE IMPOSITION of harsh penalties on Canada's softwood-lumber industry is an example — though regrettably not the only one — of the United States' ugly resort to bullying protectionism when Washington cannot win by fair means. Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew was quite justified in calling the outcome "obscene." Since the start of the 1980s, the U.S. lumber industry, which is less efficient than the Canadian industry, has been lobbying the U.S. Congress to offset its lack of competitiveness by trumping up phony charges of unfair Canadian practices in order to gain trade penalties to negate Canada's competitiveness. A succession of trade panels since 1982 has found American complaints were unjustified, but the United States has continued to apply strong-arm pressures on Canada. What could not be won by legal means, the United States pursued through threats and power politics. Twice Canada succumbed. In 1986, Canada agreed to impose a 15 per cent export tax on all softwood exports to the United States along with a humiliating agreement that gave the United States oversight over Canadian policies and invaded Canadian sovereignty. When that agreement ended in 1991, the United States launched another attack on Canada, and eventually lost. Nonetheless, through incessant bullying, Washington forced Canada in 1996 to agree to another five-year pact on softwood lumber that capped Canada's duty-free exports at about 15 billion board feet a year. When that expired at the end of March last year, the United States launched yet another attack. In this one, Washington is imposing both an anti-dumping duty averaging 12.57 per cent and a countervailing duty averaging 19.34 per cent, for an average combined penalty of 31.9 per cent on close to $10 billion of Canadian exports. In an illegal process, the anti-dumping duties paid by Canadian companies will be handed over to the U.S. softwood-lumber industry as a bonus. Tens of thousands of workers, their communities and companies will be hard hit. Canada had worked to avoid this outcome by trying to negotiate a new export-tax agreement. But the Americans tried to humiliate Canada by demanding an export tax of at least 30 per cent and massive changes in Canadian policy without any assurance of an end to future harassment. In fact, this approach by Canada, while well-meaning, was a mistake. Canada's best course was not to capitulate to American bullying, which is what agreeing to an export tax would have meant, but to pursue this country's interests through the World Trade Organization and North American Free Trade Agreement. This does mean serious pain for thousands of workers, and their communities, until the issue is resolved — though the federal government can provide relief to workers. Still, this course, in fact, was a key recommendation of the House of Commons committee on foreign affairs and international trade in March last year. The committee called on the federal government to "vigorously defend Canada's rights under international trade law with respect to trade in softwood lumber." The committee chair at the time was Bill Graham, now Canada's minister of foreign affairs. Former Canadian trade officials Michael Hart and Bill Dymond, writing in The Star last year, made much the same point. They stressed the importance of Canada pursuing its rights through formal dispute-settlement processes in the World Trade Organization and under the North American trade agreement, which is what we are now doing. "What the federal government should not do, despite urging from some producers and provinces, is to cut another deal to impose export taxes or quotas as it did in 1986 and again in 1996," Hart and Dymond argued. "Attractive as a deal may seem, it sends the wrong message on too many fronts. It validates the U.S. complaint and does not solve the long-term problems." Likewise, Toronto trade lawyer Lawrence Herman of Cassels Brock & Blackwell argued, in a backgrounder for the C.D. Howe Institute late last year, that trying to negotiate a settlement with the Americans would mean accepting a system of managed trade and major changes to Canadian forest-management practices. Even major concessions were "unlikely to appease an aggressive and possibly implacable U.S. industry." Instead, Herman said, Canada should pursue all its legal options.

To: Frank Pembleton who wrote (9874)	3/24/2002 7:10:18 PM
From: t4texas	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 36161

ok, who over there is europe is big in steel?? i can see korea, china, russia, or maybe japan getting lathered up over steel, but which eu country is getting whacked due to steel?? when i lived there, the ruhr area was in bad shape due to coal and steel. they were shutting down those places, because they weren't competitive. the only way i could see the steel workers having a job was by the grace of the governments. what has changed in steel in europe?