Bye Bye Byrd-ie

Two years after it was ruled WTO-illegal, the U.S. House of Representatives finally repealed the Byrd Amendment, which distributed anti-dumping levies collected by the government among affected countries. This is an important step in maintaining at least some of our international obligations. With the Doha Round at an impasse over agricultural market access and subsidies and the U.S. criticizing the EU for refusing to budge further than their current offer to reduce barriers to trade only around 40% and keep 8% of the total agricultural products as 'sensitive', and therefore protected, the U.S. should live up to its obligations to the WTO if it is to avoid cries of hypocrisy. As Reuters reports, "Rep. Jim Ramstad, a Minnesota Republican, has called the program 'the ultimate combination of protectionism, corporate welfare and government waste.'" Prior to the Byrd Amendment, the levies imposed as penalties for dumping went into the U.S. Treasury. The next stop for the U.S. is to impose fewer anti-dumping levies; many of the ones imposed are done for political purposes and do not meet the threshold for dumping.