Some Good Trade News

With populism seemingly winning out over liberal trade policy in the public debate of late, I am pleased to note some good news:

In addition to the U.S. International Trade Commission deviating from its conventional script and revoking 15 longstanding antidumping measures on key steel products, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative announced to Congress the administration’s decision to implement a critical change to the Commerce Department’s antidumping calculation methodology, which, if implemented in good faith, will likely reduce the incidence and disruptive impact of antidumping measures henceforth. In response to a series of rulings from the dispute settlement body of the World Trade Organization, which found a U.S. methodological practice known as “zeroing” to violate Article 2.4.2 of the WTO’s Antidumping Agreement, Commerce decided (albeit, grudgingly) to change it’s policy.

Here is a previous post on zeroing.