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Japan sees movement at WTO on dumping rules

World Trade Organisation members are edging towards formal negotiations on anti-dumping rules, a move fiercely opposed by many in the US Congress, a senior Japanese official said on Monday.

"My understanding is that there has been some movement since Sunday," Shinishi Kitajima, director-general for economic affairs in Japan's Foreign Ministry, told reporters. "Some new wording is under discussion."

US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick has faced tremendous pressure from Congress not to agree to include anti-dumping measures on the agenda for new trade talks being discussed at a WTO ministerial meeting in Qatar.

Because the United States has a more open market than most countries, it needs strong anti-dumping laws to protect its domestic producers against unfairly priced or subsidised imports, they argue.

But Japan and many other countries feel their imports have been unfairly restricted by the measures. They have insisted that negotiations on anti-dumping rules must form part of any new round of world trade talks.

Zoellick has tried to walk a fine line by saying that any negotiations on the issue must focus first on the underlying foreign government and industry practices that prompt the United States to impose anti-dumping duties.

In addition, the procedures of relatively new users of anti-dumping measures, like India and Brazil, must be scrutinised to see that they are up to the same standards used by the United States, he said.

ZOELLICK UNDER PRESSURE

Without discussing details, Kitajima said countries were willing to broaden previous draft language.

"People have concluded there should be some element in new language to accommodate, in one way or another, the view of the US delegate," he said.

Representative Sander Levin, a Michigan Democrat and the sole member of Congress in Doha, said it would be a mistake for the Bush administration to agree to talks on the measures.

"I basically do not feel there should be a renegotiation of our anti-dumping laws in any form," Levin said.

Thea Lee, trade policy specialist for the AFL-CIO umbrella group of US labour unions said the administration was making its task of winning "trade promotion authority" from Congress even harder.

That legislation would allow Zoellick to negotiate trade pacts that Congress could approve or reject, but not amend.

Supporters say without the legislation other countries would refuse to negotiate seriously with the United States because Congress could change any deal that is struck.

George Becker, former president of the United Steelworkers of America, said Republicans could pay a heavy price in the industrial states in next year's congressional elections if Zoellick agreed to talks on anti-dumping rules.

"I think they better rethink what they're doing," he said.

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