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EU narrows list of U.S. exports subject to Byrd Amendment retaliation

April 22, 2009
World Trade\Interactive

The European Union announced April 17 a decrease in the volume and types of U.S. exports subject to trade sanctions in response to the continuing payout of benefits under the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act, or Byrd Amendment. These sanctions are linked to the amount of antidumping and countervailing duty revenues distributed to U.S. industry under the Byrd Amendment, and the EU’s overall retaliation level and the specific products targeted are revised annually to reflect disbursements from the previous year.

Effective May 1 the EU will remove a number of products from the list of those subject to an additional 15% import duty and the level of retaliation will fall by more than 50% to $16.31 million. The tariff numbers of those products that will remain subject to the retaliatory duties are as follows.

4820 10 50
6204 63 11
6204 69 18
6204 63 90
6104 63 00
6203 43 11
6103 43 00
6204 63 18
6203 43 19
6204 69 90
6203 43 90
0710 40 00
9003 19 30
8705 10 00

Although President Bush signed a Byrd Amendment repeal into law in February 2006, the EU and other U.S. trading partners have said this action does not comply with a World Trade Organization ruling against the law because it allows the distribution of AD and CV duties collected on entries made until Oct. 1, 2007.