Antidumping: How It Works and Who Gets Hurt.

• Author: Salvatore, Dominick

Michael Finger is one of the foremost authorities on trade protectionism in general and dumping in particular--and the present volume clearly shows why. In the four introductory chapters that Finger has written in his edited volume, he zeros in on how antidumping action works and why it is so dangerous, in a clear and concise way, and avoids the legalisms and jargon that has made this topic often remote and inaccessible to all but the specialists. Even though NAFTA and, more importantly, the Uruguay Round were successfully completed in the months after the volume was published, the volume retains all of its importance, for although antidumping action and safeguards have been tightened, they are still possible, and so the potential for serious antidumping trade disputes remains.

The volume has three parts. Part I of the book (chapters 1-4, written by the author/editor) presents an overview of antidumping, from its origin, evolution, and possible reforms, as well as the lessons to be learned from the studies on dumping presented in the other chapters of the volume. Part II presents studies by experts on five foreign industries whose exports have been hard hit by antidumping actions in the United States and other industrialized countries. Part III present studies of antidumping enforcement in Australia, Canada, Europe, and the United States, particularly directed at curtailing a particular developing country's export.

The basic question addressed in the volume is whether the national economic interest of either the exporting or importing country was furthered by the antidumping actions that were taken. The five industry studies in part II of the volume provides a bottom up or a victim's view of the effect of being on the receiving end of antidumping actions. The four chapters in Part III then examine antidumping from the top down or from the point of view of the industrial nation taking the antidumping action against the export of a specific developing country's industry. The basic conclusion of the study is that antidumping actions serve the interests of neither the victimized not the regulator country. The basic recommendation made by Finger is to use antidumping measures as sparingly as possible and possibly entirely avoiding them.

In Chapter one, appropriately entitled "Antidumping Is Where the Action Is," Finger points out that complaining about the unfairness of foreigners has become the most popular and effective way for an industry to...