China focus of unfair trade question
By Powell Slaughter -- Furniture Today, November 11, 2002
High Point — At its annual meeting this week in Scottsdale, Ariz., the American Furniture Manufacturers Assn.'s board will review a proposal to study possible unfair trade practices among offshore furniture manufacturers.
AFMA has not made the proposal from the law firm King & Spalding public.
But an expert in the field told Furniture/Today that many industries have gotten relief from import competition, especially China. An international trade lawyer in Washington, who did not want to be identified, said unfair trade actions fall into two categories: those dealing with fairly traded goods and those against unfairly traded goods.
When fairly traded imports increase enough to damage a domestic industry, the World Trade Organization allows a member country to impose tariffs or quotas to allow domestic industry to adjust to competition. Such cases are "highly political," the lawyer said, and relief may be tailored to avoid offending trading partners or adversely affecting consumers.
Unfairly traded goods are subject to either anti-dumping cases for unfairly priced imports, or countervailing duty cases for imports benefiting from government subsidies in the source country.
U.S. manufacturers in scores of industries — as varied as steel, cement, cookware and paintbrushes — have gotten import duties of as much as 300% tacked on to products from some offshore competitors.
A particular focus is product dumping, or sale to export customers at prices judged to be below-market. The lawyer said that more dumping cases have been filed against China in the past five years than any other country. Most U.S. imports of residential wood furniture are from China.
