EU plans to raise duty on ‘Made in US’ women’s jeans

The European Commission is proposing to increase duty on women’s and girls’ jeans that are made in the US, and classified under HTSEU 6204.62.31, from 0.45 per cent to 4.3 per cent, effective May 1, 2017. This duty was 26 per cent in 2013. It was then changed to 0.35 per cent, 1.5 per cent, and 0.45 per cent in 2014, 2015 and 2016, respectively.

The additional duty on jeans is part of a continuation of sanctions authorised by the World Trade Organization in retaliation for the United States’ failure to fully comply with a WTO ruling against the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000, according to a Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg trade report.

The Byrd Amendment allowed the US to distribute anti-dumping and countervailing duties collected on foreign-made goods to affected domestic industries. However, this law was found to violate WTO rules and subsequently repealed, but distributions were allowed to continue for cases initiated prior to the repeal. In response, the WTO allows each affected country to raise its tariffs on goods imported from the US in direct relation to the amount of AD and/or CV duties on goods from that country that were distributed during the previous year.

When the amount distributed in 2012 with respect to EU goods spiked, so did the value of US exports the EU could target, prompting Brussels to add women’s and girls’ jeans to the retaliation list for 2013 and impose an additional 26 per cent duty. However, distributions decreased substantially in 2013 and have remained lower every year since, resulting in varying but fairly modest retaliatory duties, Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg said.