A friend of mine and I were just talking about what impact the DOC's proposal to end zeroing in administrative reviews would have on the Doha negotiations. In this regard, a recent FT article notes:
The US trade representative’s office said it would seek to negotiate a reinstatement of the practice of zeroing within the so-called “Doha round” of trade talks, part of which address antidumping rules. But with those talks having been stalled for some years and many other WTO members implacably opposed to zeroing, Washington is likely to face an uphill struggle.
And along the same lines, this is from the WSJ:
[A Commerce Department] official said the U.S. would continue to push for its right to use the criticized practice of "zeroing" when calculating duties on dumped goods during the ongoing Doha round of trade talks.
"The U.S. proposal to come into compliance with the WTO rulings in no way signals a change in the U.S. position in the Doha Rules negotiations with regard to zeroing," the official said.
I have a hard time imagining that the U.S. will get zeroing back through the Doha negotiations. But I can imagine that the U.S. will argue that by ending zeroing, it has made a significant trade liberalizing concession, and that others should take on some extra trade liberalization as a result.
ADDED: Further thoughts from Scott Lincicome here.
