Political Economy Of Antidumping And Safeguards In Argentina

Abstract: "Beginning in the late 1980s, Argentina implemented a series of reforms that were revolutionary in speed and scope, including trade liberalization. After the implementation of these policies, a record number of antidumping petitions came forward. Under a situation of high inflation, the government reinforced its fiscal and monetary policies by announcing that it would minimize the use of such measures. The flexible disciplines of the existing domestic antidumping regulations facilitated this objective. Later, when the GATT/WTO-sanctioned trade remedies were implemented, the government made a serious attempt to establish discipline by including liberal regulations and creating special institutional arrangements. A presumption built into the construction of the new mechanisms was that adhering to WTO requirements would strengthen the resistance against protection. This presumption turned out to be false. Changing circumstances, including severe peso overvaluation, had significant effects on the number and outcome of antidumping investigations. Regarding safeguards, the government followed the letter and the spirit of the WTO agreement. In relation to the number of petitions, few measures have been implemented. Rejections were based on a concern for consumer costs and on failure of the industry seeking protection to provide a convincing modernization plan. This, plus the fact that some cases were brought to the WTO Dispute Settlement Body, have made safeguards a less attractive instrument for protection-seekers than antidumping. An important positive side of the story is that unlike previous balance of payments adjustments, in spite of the major crisis that followed the recent devaluation, the hard-won liberalization has been maintained."--World Bank web site.

Beginning in the late 1980s, Argentina implemented a series of reforms that were revolutionary in speed and scope, including trade liberalization. After the implementation of these policies, a record number of antidumping petitions came forward. Under a situation of high inflation, the government reinforced its fiscal and monetary policies by announcing that it would minimize the use of such measures. The flexible disciplines of the existing domestic antidumping regulations facilitated this objective. Later, when the GATT/WTO-sanctioned trade remedies were implemented, the government made a serious attempt to establish discipline by including liberal regulations and creating special institutional arrangements. A presumption built into the construction of the new mechanisms was that adhering to WTO requirements would strengthen the resistance against protection. This presumption turned out to be false. Changing circumstances, including severe peso overvaluation, had significant effects on the number and outcome of antidumping investigations. Regarding safeguards, the government followed the letter and the spirit of the WTO agreement. In relation to the number of petitions, few measures have been implemented. Rejections were based on a concern for consumer costs and on failure of the industry seeking protection to provide a convincing modernization plan. This, plus the fact that some cases were brought to the WTO Dispute Settlement Body, have made safeguards a less attractive instrument for protection-seekers than antidumping. An important positive side of the story is that unlike previous balance of payments adjustments, in spite of the major crisis that followed the recent devaluation, the hard-won liberalization has been maintained.

Abstract: The footwear case provides an example of the complexities of World Trade Organization (WTO) rules on the use of safeguards, and of the interaction of multilateral and regional processes of liberalization. As a result both of Argentina's unilateral liberalization and the removal of barriers within Mercosur, imports of footwear increased rapidly. As Mercosur provides no intra-regional safeguard mechanism, the government of Argentina responded by applying import relief and WTO safeguards against third countries. The WTO Dispute Settlement Body addressed these measures and as a consequence, Argentina dismantled most of them, leading to four main conclusions: The jurisprudence of the WTO's Appellate Body has created serious uncertainty as to when a country can use safeguards. This does not contribute to the political balance that has to be maintained when developing countries implement trade liberalization programs. In fact, it detracts from this crucial goal. It is an error to negotiate ambiguous multilateral agreements on the expectation that the WTO Dispute Settlement mechanism will clarify them. An overvalued currency heightened the industry's problems. In the case of footwear, the decline in imports following the recent devaluation was more important than that following the implementation of earlier relief measures. The political economy of liberalization also indicates the need for regional agreements to include adequate transition mechanisms that will facilitate adjustment to free trade and to maintain support for it.

Until the 1990s, the main users of safeguards and antidumping laws were Australia, Canada, the European Union, and the United States. Since then, many countries have implemented such laws, leading to a proliferation in antidumping and safeguard activity across the world. This timely book documents the political economy surrounding the implementation of these laws in seven Latin American countries and provides details on the institutions created, implementation of the laws, and subsequent activity. It finds that, in the larger political context, antidumping and safeguards are a necessary quid pro quo to certain important sectors to obtain much more liberalized trade policies for the general economy.

More and more members of the WTO are using anti-dumping (AD) measures as an effective tool for protecting domestic industries facing competition with foreign products. In contrast to the 'big four' (US, EC, Canada and Australia), which have been using AD measures frequently since the GATT era, many of the new users established their AD regimes and began to use them after the establishment of the WTO. Why are there more and more new users? How are they applying AD measures? Do they comply with the rules of the WTO Anti- Dumping Agreement? What are their specific characteristics in the handling of AD cases? What should exporters and practitioners do to prepare for AD investigations by the new users? Based on extensive analyses of primary materials and hearings from practitioners and AD authorities, this book provides detailed and updated information to answer these questions on the following new users: China, Chinese Taipei, Korea, Thailand, India, South Africa, Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil.

This book is the first to bring together the actual practices and procedures in all the major users of anti-dumping. The countries surveyed include all the so-called ‘traditional’ users (Australia, Canada, the EU, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States) as well as the leading ‘new’ users (Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Korea, Mexico, and Turkey). The book provides not only an overview of each of the systems considered but also a detailed reference to the way different jurisdictions have handled specific issues. In addition, the structure for each chapter is virtually identical, allowing for a ready comparative analysis of various topics. These topics include the following: ; applicable legislation, regulations, prescribed guidelines and procedures; decision-making process and time-line; the likelihood of an investigation leading to the imposition of measures; statistics 1995–2011 with details of actual investigations and duties imposed; threshold of injury and calculation of non-injurious price; establishment of causal link; verification reports, hearings, access to information, and other procedural issues; reviews and refunds; and anti-circumvention measures. An introductory chapter provides a comparative statistical analysis of the use of anti-dumping by the thirteen countries, highlighting key features of anti-dumping systems in a comparative way. The introduction also assesses the important impacts of China’s accession to the WTO in 2001 and of the economic and financial crisis of 2008–2009, discusses the treatment of non-market economies, and notes emerging tendencies in anti-dumping reform. This is an invaluable work on a key area in trade (and competition) law, written by a team of well-known experts. With its comprehensive and practical format, the book will be of great interest to practitioners dealing with anti-dumping cases, including trade law practitioners who may have to defend anti-dumping cases in different jurisdictions, attorneys in international trade law and competition law, government officials, academics, and researchers.

This examination of the law in action of WTO dispute settlement takes a developing-country perspective. Providing a bottom-up assessment of the challenges, experiences and strategies of individual developing countries, it assesses what these countries have done and can do to build the capacity to deploy and shape the WTO legal system, as well as the daunting challenges that they face. Chapters address developing countries of varying size and wealth, including China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Thailand, South Africa, Egypt, Kenya and Bangladesh. Building from empirical work by leading academics and practitioners, this book provides a much needed understanding of how the WTO dispute settlement system actually operates behind the scenes for developing countries.

Factually, the principal finding of this book is that the trade policy reforms introduced by Peru in the 1990s have continued over several changes of president, whereas similar reforms in Argentina have been reversed. In both countries, the reforms included the introduction of new mechanisms for managing trade policy as well as the reduction of restrictions. Throughout the decade beginning in 2000, Peru’s liberalization expanded. The new institutions became more robust, and through them pressures for protection were effectively contained. At the same time, Argentine trade policy returned to the high-protection import substitution regime in place before the 1990s reforms. Multiple restrictions have been imposed, mostly through a reversion to informal methods that abjure the governance characteristics that the 1990s reforms introduced. The difference between the two cases cannot be explained by economic parameters such as resource endowments or external shocks. Peru’s reforms manifest the buoyant and confident attitude toward the global economy that reform leaders were able to introduce into Peruvian politics. In the words of former president Alan García, there is an eagerness to “climb up on the wave of growth.” In comparison, Argentina’s current development strategy sees international trade as detrimental to Argentina’s interests unless participation by Argentine buyers and sellers is guided by government intervention. The Peruvian case provides examples of successfully managing the politics of reform and the technical aspects of policy so as to establish transparent and participatory processes that weigh accurately the impact of trade policy on all affected domestic parties. The Argentine case demonstrates that the World Trade Organization legal system is not an effective restraint on a government that wants to revert to an import substitution regime. International cooperation has been useful when it has recognized and influenced domestic sovereignty over economic regulation; however, it is not been useful when approached as a matter of international regulation of national actions.