The meaning of"unfair"in US import policy

This paper concludes that transparency, openness, and objectivity, are important parts of the American ideal of rule of law. Yet these procedural refinements seem to contribute more to the problem than to a solution. All the emphasis on doing things the right way distracts us from seeing that we are doing the wrong thing. Protection for U.S. production beset by import competition is what the antidumping and countervailing duty laws are all about, contends the author. Only in rhetoric are the unfair trade procedures about what foreign sellers are doing and about whether what they are doing is fair or unfair. The legal definitions of what is unfair offer so many possibilities that any U.S. producer who would be better off if imports were restricted can find a way to qualify - if not now, then after the next trade bill. The focus of trade regulation should be the following question: Who in the domestic economy will benefit from the proposed restriction and who will lose, and by how much ? Then get the economics right. Finally, the author concludes that the idea that there are gains from trade, usually greater than the costs, has been around since Adam Smith. It is just that they have never been made legal in the United States.