Z S's List: WTO Paper

• tax on tea
• paid the moment the tea was unloaded from the Beaver, Dartmouth, and Eleanor
• 1767 Townshend Revenue Act
• deadline for payment of the tax was twenty days after the arriva
• Sons of Liberty, led by Samuel Adams
• responsible for organizing the Boston Tea Party.

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• British shut down Boston Harbor until all of the 340 chests of British East India Company tea were paid for
• 1774 Intolerable Acts and known as the Boston Port Act
• American colonists responded with protests and coordinated resistance by convening the First Continental Congress

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• strongholds of British economy
• 1773 the East India Company was
• American non-importation restrictions
• huge inventory it could not move
• British government was reluctant to let it happen from fear that this may disrupt financial markets.
• decided to allow the company to send tea to America without paying an export duty
• warned by Franklin and other Americans that they would suffer loss
• countrymen would not accept the new arrangement
• They met the
• question with
• Is there a duty for revenue, imposed on tea?
• deeper significance than
• cheapness of a commodity
• tea, whatever its price, should not be landed in America until that duty was taken off

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• United States provides subsidies to the US corn industry
• inconsistent with Articles 5(c) and 6.3(c) of the SCM Agreement
• United States makes available
• to its exporters premium rates and other terms more favourable than those which the market would otherwise provide through export credit guarantee programmes
• Agricultural Trade Act of 1978
• GSM-102 programme
• subsidies contingent upon export performance contrary to Article 3.1(a) and 3.2 of the SCM Agreement
• violate Articles 3.3, 8, 9.1 and 10.1 of the Agreement on Agriculture
• improper exclusion of domestic support, the United States provides support in favour of domestic producers in excess of the commitment levels
• Australia requested to join
• Argentina, Brazil, the European Communities, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Thailand requested to join
• Uruguay requested to join
• DSB deferred the establishment of a panel
• Brazil requested consultations
• domestic support for agricultural products
• export credit guarantee
• Brazil requests consultation
• Brazil's request
• domestic support provided to agricultural producers
• instruments under which such support was provided
• Article 6 of the Agreement on Agriculture
• instruments
• direct payments for various commodities, cottonseed payments, cotton user marketing certifications, energy subsidies and feed assistance.
• result in possible inconsistencies with Article 3.2 of the Agreement on Agriculture
• exceeded its commitment levels in each of the years 1999-200
• 2002 and 2004-2005
• onsultations on various US export credit guarantee programmes
• inconsistencies with Articles 3.3, 8, 9.1 and 10.1 of the Agreement on Agriculture and also Articles 3.1(a) and 3.2 of the SCM Agreement
• more favourable than those which are otherwise available in the market.
• July 2007, Canada requested to join the consultations
• Canada and Brazil each requested the establishment of a panel.
• DSB deferred the establishment of a panel.

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• As potential WTO litigation moves forward, the Associated Press reported yesterday that, “Breathing life into struggling world trade talks, the U.S. has signaled its willingness to limit trade-distorting farm subsidies to a level between $13 billion and $16.4 billion, the WTO’s lead farm trade negotiator said Wednesday.
• U.S. has never said publicly it could accept a cap on payments to U.S. farmers below around $23 billion.

• urrently pays around $20 billion per year to farmers in direct subsidies as "farm income stabilization"^[9][10][11] via U.S. farm bills.
• 1922 Grain Futures Act, the 1929 Agricultural Marketing Act and the 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act creating a tradition of government support
• Established in 1996, direct payments were originally meant to wean farmers off traditional subsidies that are triggered during periods of low prices for corn, wheat, soybeans, cotton, rice, and other crops
• give farmers extra money for their crops and guarantee a price floor.
• 2002 Farm Bill
• farmers were paid an extra 52 cents and guaranteed a price of 3.86 from 2002–03 and 3.92 from 2004–2007
• Energy Policy Act of 2005 mandates that billions of gallons of ethanol be blended
• guaranteeing demand
• producers were shielded from competition from cheaper Brazilian sugarcane-ethanol by a 54-cent-per-gallon tariff,
• Feed grains, mostly corn 2,841 35.4%
• export subsidies, by driving down the price of commodities, can provide cheap food for consumers in developing countries
• harmful to farmers not receiving the subsidy
• promote poverty in developing countries by artificially driving down world crop prices
• In 2006, talks at the Doha round of WTO trade negotiations stalled because the US refused to cut subsidies to a level where other countries' non-subsidized exports would have been competitive
• cost poor countries
• Mark Malloch Brown, former head of the United Nations Development Program
• US$50 billion a year in lost agricultural exports
• Fifty billion dollars is the equivalent of today's level of development assistance

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• 27 September 2002
• subsidies provided to US producers
• exporter
• regulations
• legislation
• users
• Zimbabwe and India, respectively, requested to join the consultations
• Argentina and Canada requested
• 2003, Brazil requested the establishment of a panel
• DSB deferred
• second request by Brazil, the DSB established a Panel at its meeting on 18 March 2003
• Argentina, Canada, China, Chinese Taipei, the European Communities, India, Pakistan and Venezuela reserved their third-party rights to participate
• Chairman of the panel informed the DSB
• not be able to complete its work in six months due to the complexity
• r 2004
• Septembe
• subject to WTO export subsidy disciplines
• agricultural export credit guarantees
• United States also grants several other prohibited subsidies in respect of cotton
• October 2004, the United States notified its intention to appeal
• Appellate Body:
• not green box
• upheld the panel’s finding that
• marketing loan program payments
• market loss assistance payments
• are significant price suppression
• counter-cyclical payments
• domestic users
• exporters
• does not exempt export credit guarantees from the export subsidy disciplines
• United States withdraw, by at the latest within six months
• the following prohibited subsidies:
• export credit guarantees
• user marketing (STEP2) payments to exporters
• user marketing (STEP2) payments to domestic users
• United States had failed to comply with the DSB recommendations and rulings
• countermeasures in the form of the suspension of tariff concessions and related obligations
• imposing additional customs duties on a list of products imported from the United States
• On 25 August 2010, Brazil and the United States notified the DSB they had concluded a Framework for a Mutually Agreed Solution
• sets out parameters for discussions on a solution with respect to domestic support programs
• consultations not less than four times a year
• as long as the Framework is in effect, Brazil will not impose the countermeasures authorized by the DSB

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