Emergency Committee For American Trade

ECAT Urges Balanced Approach to Rules Text

News Release For Immediate Release

November 30, 2007 Contact: Bess Gulliver

202.659.5147

ECAT URGES BALANCED APPROACH IN RULES TEXT THAT WILL ENHANCE, NOT UNDERMINE, THE PROMISE OF WTO DOHA MARKET OPENING

United States Is Increasingly a Target of Foreign Trade-Remedy Actions

Washington, D.C., November 30, 2007: Calman J. Cohen, President of the Emergency Committee for American Trade (ECAT), made the following statement on the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha Development Agenda negotiations upon today’s release of the first draft of the Rules text by WTO Rules Chairman Guillermo Valles of Uruguay:

“ECAT looks forward to reviewing closely the first draft of the Rules text released today in Geneva to ensure that it is balanced and, most importantly, that it makes improvements and clarifications in the rules so that the market access being achieved in other parts of the Doha negotiations will not be effectively undone by the abusive and unfair use of trade-remedy actions against U.S. farm and manufactured goods.

“U.S. negotiators have been working tirelessly to open markets for U.S. goods and services. The fruits of that work will hopefully be evident in texts to be released early next year. Despite the important gains for U.S. farmers, manufacturers, service providers and their workers that we all expect these negotiations to produce, these new opportunities cannot be realized unless negotiators also succeed in producing a rules text that will eliminate the unfair barriers that are increasingly arising through the misuse of trade-remedy actions by countries around the world.

“While originally aimed at addressing unfair foreign practices that gave foreign products a competitive advantage, trade-remedy rules are increasingly being used by foreign competitors against the United States to block access of U.S. farm and manufactured goods into their markets. While the United States had been the largest user of the trade-remedy rules, that is no longer the case.

“In fact, the United States is now the third largest target of antidumping cases worldwide, creating new and oftentimes unfair trade barriers against U.S. goods. While antidumping and countervailing duty provisions certainly have their place in a rules-based trade regime, improvements and clarifications in the rules regime are required to prevent the continued unfair use of trade-remedy rules against the United States.”

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Founded in 1967, ECAT is an organization of the heads of leading U.S. international business enterprises representing all major sectors of the American economy. Their annual worldwide sales total over $2.5 trillion and they employ more than six million persons. ECAT’s purpose is to promote economic growth through the expansion of international trade and investment.

Attached Document(s): 11-30 ECAT Urges Balanced Approach to Rules Text.pdf