U.S. lumber industry praises WTO decision regarding Canadian softwood
The U.S. lumber industry praised reports Monday that the World Trade Organization has rejected Canada’s challenge to the United States’ determination that domestic lumber producers are threatened by imports of dumped and subsidized Canadian softwood lumber.
The WTO decision upholds a determination made by the U.S. International Trade Commission in November 2004 that Canada’s management of lumber exports to the United States violates section 129 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act.
“This new determination should put to rest any questions about whether duties are justified in this case,” said Steve Swanson, chairman of the Washington-based Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports, in a statement Monday.
This ruling comes less than three weeks after an Extraordinary Challenge Committee (ECC) disregarded established U.S. law in affirming a North American Free Trade Agreement panel’s reversal of similar threat of injury determinations made by the ITC since 2002.
Under U.S. law, the section 129 determination, upheld by the WTO, provides the legal basis for maintaining the countervailing and antidumping duties currently in effect.
“This WTO victory demonstrates that the ECC and the NAFTA panel decisions were wrong,” Swanson said.