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EU seeks WTO nod to hit US over anti-dumping law

Reuters, Brussels
The European Union said Wednesday it would slap the United States with $40 million to $50 million in sanctions if it failed in a last push to get US anti-dumping legislation repealed.
Eight World TYade Organisation members, including the European Union have already won the right to retaliate against US duties set out in the so-called Byrd amendment but they must go back to the WTO a final time before duties are applied.
"We are asking for this to be put on the agenda of the WTO dispute settlement body's meeting on November 24," said the European Union Commission's trade spokeswoman, Arnncha Gonzalez.
Authorisation is guaranteed as their request could only be blocked by the unanimous decision of all WTO members, including themselves.
The legislation distributes funds raised from duties on imports into the United States which are deemed to have been unfairly priced below the domestic market to companies that sought that protection. Previously, such funds went to the general treasury.
In Washington, the Bush administration said it was working with Congress to comply with the WTO
ruling and urged trading partners to be patient
"Complex issues like these often take time,” said Richard Mills, a spokesman for the US Trade Representative's office. "For example, the EU has needed over three years to come into compliance with a separate dispute on bananas."
Gonzalez said Japan - which would impose $80 million in duties - and "pretty much all" of the six other World TYade Organisation (WTO) members had made the same request
EU and Japanese allies in the case are Brazil, Canada, Chile, India, Mexico and South Korea.
The Geneva-based WTO has repeatedly declared the Byrd amendment illegal under internationaltraderules.
EU TYade Commissioner Pascal Lamy indicated trading partners were willing to give Washington some more time to scrap the legislation.
“There's a club... who are working together to try and ensure that the American’s comply before we get to implementing those sanctions," he told a news conference.
EU diplomats said the 25-nation bloc was not taking an aggressive approach to the face-off given that transatlantic trade relations are strained enough by other disputes, including a row over state aid for
rival plane makers Airbus and Boeing.
"We are just going through the motions on this one," said an envoy. "It is not significant in trade terms... and the onus lies here not so much with the administration as with Congress."
Lamy indicated that sanctions over Byrd could hit a broad range of products, as they did when the EU slapped higher duties on US goods ranging from steel to textiles and paper over the Foreign Sales Corporation, or FSC, system of export tax subsidies.
"We will decide whether or not we do a wide range (of goods) or targeted, my sense being that we need - as we did for FSC — to focus minds in Congress," he said, referring to pressure for the repeal of that legislation, which came last month.
The Byrd amendment has deliv-ered^ayments of some $710 million to US ball bearing, steel, seafood, pasta, candle and other companies since 2001. A new round of payments to companies is expected before the end of the year.
Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd, after whom the provision was named, and five Republican colleagues wrote to US President George W Bush last month stressing that there was still "strong, bipartisan support" for the legislation.