WASHINGTON, D.C. - House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-NY), and Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Sander Levin (D-MI) issued the following joint statement regarding the World Trade Organization (WTO) panel decision released today on Mexican stainless steel:
"Today, for a third time, a WTO panel has confirmed what the text of the WTO Antidumping Agreement readily shows - that WTO Members never negotiated and adopted any requirement to "offset" dumped sales with non-dumped sales in administrative reviews. This is now the second WTO panel to reject the attempts by the Appellate Body impermissibly to impose such a requirement on Members.
"The sole mandate of WTO dispute settlement bodies is to apply the WTO agreements as written - not to impose new rights and obligations to which Members have not agreed. The WTO panel corrects significant overreaching by the Appellate Body in this regard.
"However, the WTO panel does not go far enough. The panel does not correct the equally flawed determination by the Appellate Body that an "offsetting" requirement applies in antidumping investigations. No such requirement exists in the Antidumping Agreement. And it is inexplicable that the United States Trade Representative did not maintain this critical point in its arguments.
"The Appellate Body’s flawed decisions on "offsetting" must be rolled back to clarify that investigating authorities can continue to counter illegal dumping fully and effectively."
