Peter Gallagher

It’s a mark of indus­trial devel­op­ment (no, really)—or per­haps of the devel­op­ment of their polit­i­cal economies—that the charge is now being led by the emerg­ing indus­trial giants (India, China, Brazil) whose exports are also the most anti-dumped. Tit-for-tat pro­tec­tion? Per­haps. But if that were so, then China would be tak­ing a much big­ger lead on anti-dumping actions than it has so far; it is cer­tainly the hardest-hit (click thumb­nail image).

In real­ity dump­ing is a ratio­nal, com­pet­i­tive com­mer­cial strat­egy. Anti-dumping is an effec­tive strat­egy too, although anti-competitive. Pro­tec­tion­ism is mea­sured in this case not by anti-dumping inves­ti­ga­tions but by the will­ing­ness of gov­ern­ments to impose anti-dumping penalty duties, in effect on their own con­sumers, that are often many times higher than bound tar­iff rates.