U.S. anti-dumping duties against Korea unfair: WTO

The World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled last Friday that the U.S. imposition of anti-dumping duties on Korean-produced steel products violated WTO trade regulations.

The three-person WTO panel instructed the United States to acknowledge its mistakes in calculating some exchange rates and revise relevant systems to meet WTO regulations. It did not demand the cancellation of the anti-dumping duties.

Based on its investigation of the anti-dumping suit, filed against Korean steel makers by U.S. enterprises and their labor unions in 1998, the U.S. Department of Commerce imposed 16.2% duties on all Korean-produced steel sheets and the maximum 58.79% on thin steel sheets.

Korea filed a complaint with the WTO, arguing that the United States made mistakes in calculating the steel product prices because it applied different exchange rates when converting the dollar into the won and vice versa.