Three Times Lucky? NAFTA Panel Rejects US Softwood Claims
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VANCOUVER – A NAFTA panel has rejected American claims that Canadian lumber imports threaten producers in the United States.
The decision is a victory for Canada in the ongoing dispute over softwood lumber.
Canada has maintained that without demonstrating a threat of injury, the U.S. cannot justify the 27.2 per cent countervailing and anti-dumping duties it imposed on softwood lumber imports in May 2002.
This is the third time the NAFTA panel has considered the U.S. Commerce Department’s threat-of-injury argument.
Two previous attempts to justify the duties were sent back to the department for review. This time, the five-member panel said its decision was final.
It said the department’s International Trade Commission had offered no fresh evidence to back its claims and that it was “simply unwilling to accept this panel’s review authority … and has consistently ignored the authority of this panel in an effort to preserve its finding of threat of material injury.”
A further review of the issues would be an “idle and useless formality,” the panel said.
It ordered the commission to “make a determination consistent with the decision of this panel that the evidence on the record does not support a finding of threat of material injury and to make that determination within 10 days from the date of this panel decision.”
The panel’s ruling can still be appealed under NAFTA’s extraordinary challenge provisions. If the U.S. decides to do so and fails, the duties could be removed by next year.
The ruling was hailed by Carl Grenier, executive vice-president of the Montreal-based Free Trade Lumber Council.
“It cannot get any better than this,” Grenier said. “It’s total victory. They basically ran out of patience.”
Grenier said he expects the U.S. will comply reluctantly with the ruling while a final appeal is filed with the extraordinary challenge committee.
“The tariffs will not budge until the legal remedies are exhausted,” he said. “That will take us to the beginning of next year.”
Canadian lumber exporters have paid about $1.5 billion in duties since they were first imposed. The money is being held on deposit while the duties are being challenged.
Written by CBC News Online staff
http://www.cbc.ca/story/business/national/2004/08/31/softwood_ruling040831.html
Reprinted for Fair Use Only
@ August 31, 2004