Trade Sanctions

Iranian officials say international sanctions haven't kept them from continuing to do business with much of the world. At the Tehran International Industry Fair this month, leaders boasted in a brochure that 25 countries were taking part. But on a visit to the fair, one country stood out: China. Trade specialists say that Beijing, which conducted nearly $22 billion in trade with Iran in 2009, can supply versions of almost anything no longer imported from Western countries, and can easily circumvent or even ignore the banking complications faced by other nations attempting to do business with the Islamic Republic.

The two elderly men were surrounded by scads of beautiful young women, but theirs was the real courtship, a pas de deux between a ruthless North African dictator and a fawning European leader. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi ardently pursued the approval of Libyan strongman Moammar Kadafi in a relationship that has been a pillar of Italian foreign policy. Flattering him has been key to Italy's continued access to Libya's oil and gas supplies ? worth billions of dollars ?

The Foreign Ministry called in the U.S. ambassador today and accused Congress of deliberately trying to undermine relations with China by calling for new trade sanctions. The official New China News Agency said Liu Huaqiu, an assistant to Foreign Minister Qian Qichen, expressed China's indignation and delivered a strong protest to Ambassador James Lilley.

Iranian officials say international sanctions haven't kept them from continuing to do business with much of the world. At the Tehran International Industry Fair this month, leaders boasted in a brochure that 25 countries were taking part. But on a visit to the fair, one country stood out: China. Trade specialists say that Beijing, which conducted nearly $22 billion in trade with Iran in 2009, can supply versions of almost anything no longer imported from Western countries, and can easily circumvent or even ignore the banking complications faced by other nations attempting to do business with the Islamic Republic.

A U.S. church leader has called for an end to United Nations trade sanctions against Iraq, saying that they hurt civilians and leave government officials untouched. The Rev. Rodney Page of the National Council of Churches called the sanctions on Iraq unjust and inhumane, advocating that they be lifted. Page led a group of U.S. clergymen to Iraq, bringing along $100,000 in medicine and surgical supplies for hospitals.

President Reagan, decrying "the piracy of our intellectual property," imposed trade sanctions today on Brazil in retaliation for a lack of patent protection for American pharmaceuticals. Acting on a complaint lodged in June, 1987, by the American pharmaceutical industry, Reagan set into motion a process that will result in higher tariffs and other import curbs on an unspecified amount of Brazilian imports.

Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) has introduced legislation to impose trade sanctions against Iraq, a proposal that sets the stage for a debate between Congress and the administration over U.S. relations with the Persian Gulf nation. Berman said the purpose of the bill, introduced at a time when the Bush Administration is trying to ease tensions with Iraq, is to prevent Iraq's belligerent President Saddam Hussein from obtaining the means to manufacture nuclear and chemical weapons.

Cuba, vowing to defend its socialism to the death, said Saturday that tighter U.S. trade sanctions against it rule out, at least for the present, any possibility of political compromise with Washington. State news agencies and newspapers poured scorn and abuse on legislation signed by President Bush on Friday that sharply tightened a 30-year-old U.S. economic embargo against the Communist-ruled island.

The Reagan Administration has tentatively rejected a request by Japan that the United States lift $165 million worth of trade sanctions it imposed in 1987 after it charged that Tokyo failed to comply with a semiconductor trade accord the countries had signed. The decision, which had been expected, comes after two days of discussions between mid-level negotiators from both sides. Although the White House technically still could reverse the ruling by the U.S. Trade Representative's office, U.S.

Brazil has asked the World Trade Organization for the right to impose as much as $4 billion in annual sanctions against American goods and services to penalize the United States for handing out illegal cotton subsidies, two officials familiar with the matter said Tuesday. The request was filed Monday at WTO headquarters, said the trade officials, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the media. Brazil asks that the global trade group restart a process, begun in 2005, in which Brazil sought WTO consultations with the U.S. That process was suspended while Washington was given time to bring its cotton programs into compliance with WTO rules.

California pistachio growers are finding themselves the unexpected beneficiaries of U.S. trade sanctions against Iran. A U.S. ban on Iranian pistachios went into effect on Wednesday, as the Obama administration ratchets up economic pressure on Iran to open its nuclear facilities to international inspection. President Obama signed the ban on July 1. It's good news for American pistachio farmers, who have long vied with Iran for dominance in the U.S.'s $700-million domestic market, as well as overseas.

The European Union formally adopted harsh and unprecedented restrictions on trade with Iran on Monday in an effort to pressure Tehran to comply with international demands to curb its nuclear development program, which Western governments and analysts believe is aimed at building nuclear weapons. The sanctions bring the European Union closer to the United States' position on trade with Iran, though they are not as sweeping as the strict measures Washington has imposed banning almost all commerce with the Islamic Republic.

Brazil has asked the World Trade Organization for the right to impose as much as $4 billion in annual sanctions against American goods and services to penalize the United States for handing out illegal cotton subsidies, two officials familiar with the matter said Tuesday. The request was filed Monday at WTO headquarters, said the trade officials, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the media. Brazil asks that the global trade group restart a process, begun in 2005, in which Brazil sought WTO consultations with the U.S. That process was suspended while Washington was given time to bring its cotton programs into compliance with WTO rules.

The European Union said Thursday that it would impose sanctions on U.S. products to punish Washington for failing to repeal an anti-dumping law ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization. The EU head office said it would be joined soon by seven other nations that had requested the WTO to authorize retaliation. The EU's move would slap additional duties of as much as 15% as of May 1 on such U.S. products as paper, textiles, machinery and farm produce.

In "AFL-CIO Seeks U.S. Trade Sanctions Against China" (March 17), a think-tank researcher raises the specter of a "potentially costly trade war" if the U.S. imposed trade sanctions to end China's persistent violation of worker rights, as the AFL-CIO has demanded in a petition to the president. According to the researcher, China could seek permission from the World Trade Organization to retaliate against such sanctions. This claim is erroneous. U.S. trade sanctions to enforce workers' rights in China would not violate WTO rules and would therefore provide no basis for the WTO to authorize retaliatory sanctions by China.

Organized labor opened a new front in the trade wars Tuesday. Employing a tactic never tried before, the AFL-CIO filed a petition asking the Bush administration to impose stiff penalties against China because its "brutal repression" of worker rights gives its companies an unfair competitive advantage -- depressing wages by as much as 86% and encouraging the transfer of U.S. jobs overseas.

India, isolated on Washington's trade hit list for erecting barricades against foreign competition, insists that it will not negotiate under threat of retaliation. Officials on Monday declined to comment on India being cited by the United States as an unfair trader for the second straight year, pending an official response to Washington.

The U.N. Security Council agreed unanimously Thursday to adopt new American-backed trade sanctions on Iraq next June after a final six-month extension of the current system of controls. Under the "smart" sanctions to come next year, the council will for the first time impose specific constraints on hundreds of import items with possible military applications, from X-ray machines and telecommunications software to hydrophones and night-vision goggles.

The European Union received the go-ahead to start imposing trade sanctions against the United States in a dispute over an 88-year-old law that steel producers and other U.S. companies have used to fend off low-priced imports. A panel of arbitrators for the World Trade Organization ruled that the 15-nation bloc could apply the sanctions in retaliation for the U.S. failure to repeal the 1916 Anti-Dumping Act, which was ruled illegal by the WTO almost four years ago.

European Union officials gave the go-ahead for plans to hit the United States with trade sanctions worth hundreds of millions of dollars in a bitter transatlantic dispute over steel. The European Commission, the EU's executive body, said members of the 15-nation bloc unanimously backed its idea of retaliating against new U.S. steel duties with sanctions worth $300 million on a range of U.S. goods starting June 18.