Industry Headlines
WTO Backs 'Global Warming' Import
Duties
July 1, 2009
Metal Bulletin
With the nation's capital focused on the House of Representatives'
narrow passage of a major cap-and-trade bill late Friday, scant
attention was paid to a significant announcement in Geneva that could
affect trade in steel and other manufactured products over the long
term.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) said at the weekend that nations
which put cap-and-trade mechanisms into place to deal with global
warming may be eligible to apply import duties at the border to protect
their domestic producers.
"Rules permit, under certain conditions, the use of border tax
adjustments on imported and exported products," the WTO said in a
littlenoted report published jointly with the United Nations Environment
Program. "The objective of a border tax adjustment is to level the
playing field between taxed domestic industries and untaxed foreign
competition by ensuring that internal taxes on products are
tradeneutral."
The WTO statement goes to the heart of what domestic manufacturers,
including steelmakers, find most noxious in the American Clean Energy
and Security Act, which squeaked through the House by a 219-212 vote
that saw heavy last-minute lobbying and arm-twisting on both sides of
the aisle.
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