W.T.O. Rules U.S. Tariffs on Steel Imports Are Illegal | NY Times

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W.T.O. Rules U.S. Tariffs on Steel Imports Are Illegal
By PAUL MELLER


RUSSELS, July 11 The World Trade Organization ruled today that the United States illegally imposed import tariffs on steel products, increasing the likelihood that the European Union and others will retaliate with sanctions on American exports.

The decision was greeted by defiant statements from both sides in the trade dispute, and it threatens to overshadow next month's meeting of trade officials in Cancun, Mexico, to agree a new global trade agreement.

The W.T.O. panel, which was set up to consider complaints by the European Union, Japan, South Korea, China, Switzerland, Norway, New Zealand and Brazil, concluded that the United States did not have grounds to impose the tariffs as a way of safeguarding the American steel industry from a flood of imports.

The United States was wrong to claim that imports were rising in many of the steel categories concerned, the W.T.O. panel said in a 1,000-page report. The Bush administ also failed to prove a causal link between an increase in imports in some sectors and any serious injury suffered by American steelmakers as a result of those increases.

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