U.S., Japan tag team Argentina at the WTO

The United States and Japan have joined the European Union in complaining to the World Trade Organization about what they allege are Argentina’s illegal import restrictions. Via Reuters: The U.S. and Japanese complaints both allege that Argentina’s rules are unjustified by the WTO rulebook. The European Union had made the same point, adding that the ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

The United States and Japan have joined the European Union in complaining to the World Trade Organization about what they allege are Argentina's illegal import restrictions. Via Reuters:

The United States and Japan have joined the European Union in complaining to the World Trade Organization about what they allege are Argentina’s illegal import restrictions. Via Reuters:

The U.S. and Japanese complaints both allege that Argentina’s rules are unjustified by the WTO rulebook.

The European Union had made the same point, adding that the licensing rules "instead aimed at advancing the Argentinean Government’s stated policies of re?industrialization, import substitution and elimination of trade balance deficits".

WTO members have the right to ask importers to apply for an import license, but they are supposed to grant them automatically. In Argentina, however, many licenses labeled "automatic" suffer long delays, according to the European Commission.

EU and U.S. officials say Argentina’s rules have effectively restricted all imports since its procedures were tightened in February 2012.

The Buenos Aires Herald notes that this is the second time this year that the EU, Japan, and the United States have teamed up on WTO litigation: "On March 13, the three joined forces to hit China with a trade suit over exports of rare earths and other metals."

Almost immediately, Argentina fired back with complaints about U.S. restrictions on imported beef and fruit. 

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

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