Author: Brink Lindsey and Dan Ikenson 
 
In the U.S. trade policy debate, antidumping policy has become a hot-button issue. The U.S. antidumping law, which protects domestic industries against supposedly unfair import competition, has long been unpopular with countries whose exports suffer from its operation. In recent years, many of those countries have been urging the U.S. government to agree to new international rules—either multilaterally at the World Trade Organization or regionally in talks about a free-trade area of the Americas (FTAA)—that would tighten the requirements that must be met before antidumping protection can be granted.
 
Powerful U.S. lobbying interests, and their supporters in Congress, have vehemently opposed new antidumping negotiations. American industries that frequently seek antidumping protection—in particular, steel producers—argue that a “strong” law is needed to ensure a “level playing field” and to maintain public support for generally open markets. They insist that any effort to “weaken” current law through trade negotiations must be rejected out of hand.
 
The Clinton administration accepted the arguments of the supporters of antidumping and stoutly refused to put antidumping on the agenda for a new round of WTO negotiations. Indeed, U.S. intransigence on that point was a significant factor in the breakdown of talks at the Seattle ministerial conference in December 1999. The Bush administration is now revisiting the question, in the context of both the WTO and an FTAA.
 
As the Bush administration weighs its options, it should realize that supporters of antidumping, however vocal and well organized, do not by any means represent the full range of affected U.S. interests. Despite the efforts of supporters of antidumping to frame the issue in “us-versus-them” terms—with American import-competing industries on one side and foreign “unfair traders” and their governments on the other—the fact is that many vitally important American constituencies have a strong stake in antidumping reform. Most obviously, American import-using industries and consumers suffer when antidumping measures increase the price or interfere with the availability of foreign-sourced raw materials, equipment, components, and goods. Their interests, and the overall national interest in strong economic performance, would be well served by new restraints on antidumping abuses.
 
Yet another powerful constituency stands to benefit from improved antidumping rules. Although this group is usually at the very center of U.S. trade policy concerns, its interests with respect to antidumping have up to now been almost completely ignored. The constituency in question is U.S. exporters, whose interest lies, not in the U.S. law, but in the proliferating tangle of foreign antidumping laws and the growing threat they pose to market access abroad.
 
For many decades antidumping protectionism was a vice exclusive to rich industrialized nations—specifically, the United States, Canada, members of what is now the European Union, Australia, and New Zealand. In recent years, however, dozens of less-developed countries have followed the U.S. example and adopted antidumping laws. As a result, the chickens are coming home to roost: U.S. exports are increasingly encountering the same unpredictable, arbitrary, and disruptive obstacles abroad that have long been inflicted on other countries’ exports here. Indeed, from 1995 to 2000, the United States was the third most frequent target of world antidumping measures.
 
Market access for U.S. exports is one important component of a much broader national interest in an open and prosperous international economy. That larger interest is also menaced by the recent proliferation of antidumping measures. The rapid spread of antidumping protectionism throughout the developing world threatens to undo many of the liberalizing gains made possible by the elimination of quotas and import licenses and the slashing of tariff rates. The integrity of the world trading system is being undermined by the increasing frequency and virulence of antidumping activity.
 
It is therefore imperative that the focus of the antidumping debate here in the United States be broadened. The effect of international negotiations on the U.S. antidumping law— or rather, on the industries that use the U.S. law—has up to now been the exclusive subject of attention. Policymakers need to lift their sights and recognize that more than 60 countries now have antidumping laws. They should recognize further that, as a result, U.S. exports—and the vitality of the world trading system—are increasingly being cut up in the crossfire. They should conclude that the time has come for meaningful international negotiations to restrain and reverse the spread of antidumping abuses.