US faulted at WTO for not fixing Spanish olive tariffs as ordered

AMERIKAN EXCEPTIONALISM:NOT PLAYING BY THE RULES

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 AFP

The United States has failed to implement an order to bring its duties on Spanish olives in line with international trade rules, a World Trade Organization compliance panel said Tuesday.

Former US president Donald Trump’s administration slapped extra tariffs on Spain’s iconic agricultural export in 2018, considering their olives were subsidised and being dumped on the US market at prices below their real value.

After the European Union complained, a panel of experts appointed by the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) ruled in 2021 that the steep import duties violated international trade laws and demanded that the United States rectify the situation.

Washington did not appeal against that ruling, and later maintained that it had made the required changes.

But the EU disagreed and called for a WTO compliance panel to evaluate the situation.

In its ruling published Tuesday, that panel found that the EU had demonstrated that “the United States has failed to bring its measures into conformity with the adopted DSB recommendations and rulings”.

“To the extent that the United States has failed to comply with the adopted recommendations and rulings of the DSB in the original dispute, those adopted recommendations and rulings remain operative,” it said.

It urged Washington to “bring its measures into conformity with its obligations” under international trade law.