"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
news
On 17/12/2018 22:33, Tim J wrote:


"bert" wrote in message


If our initial schedule is the same as the EUs they cannot veto it. They
cannot veto out of political malice.

They dont get to veto any schedule. The UK is free to have
any schedule it likes just as long as it has the same tariff for
all countries that do not have a trade agreement, as her
original quote said correctly.

I think they would stuill play silly buggers.

But doing that has no effect. Any WTO signatory can do what
it likes with the tariffs it has as long as it applies the same tariff
to imports from all countries unless there is a trade agreement
with that country.

For example they could yell "unfair farming subsidies = virtual import
tarriff on French food" and claim we were iunfairtly disadvantaging them.

No WTO rule against that. That is after all what tariffs
are about, protecting local industry, or agriculture in
that sense. That is in fact precisely what the EU tariffs
on agricultural imports do and there is nothing in the
WTO rules that disallows that. The WTO does attempt
to encourage lower tariffs, but any signatory country
is free to set whatever tariffs it likes just as long as they
apply to all imports in the absence of a trade agreement.

Cf Chinese 'dumping' ,

Dumping is a different issue to tariffs and the UK
doesnt do dumping. The EU did with some stuff,
particularly with the surplus CAP production, but
even then, the WTO can't stop that from happening
and no WTO country has any veto on any schedule.

Or any other product that gets state aod. E.g. UK nuclear power exported
to them

The WTO gets no say on that either.

There is endless opportunity to break the spirit of the rules if not the
letter.

But the reality, as currently seen with Trump and his punitive
tariffs that only apply to China, there is in fact nothing the
WTO can do about that except stamp its foot about it.

The poit is that e EU is not, despite a veru close prior and corrupt
relatioship, the sameas Eurobusiness. Euroebusiness pays the EU to deliver
a captive market,

And thats fine under the WTO rules.

Britai looks set to break free. Eurobusiness may well abandon the EU if it
hasn't delivered.

Unlikely that they will IMO, but for other reasons.
German industry particularly benefits very greatly
from the effective devaluation it gets by being
the most successful economy in the eurozone
and Airbus wouldnt be viable out of the EU.
Italian industry wont abandon the EU either,
because its banks are so fragile and they need to
be bailed out by the EU. No one else will do that.

Nokia is now a very pale shadow of what it once was
and Ikea will continue to do fine for other reasons.

"Pamela" wrote in message
...
On 19:33 18 Dec 2018, "Tim J" wrote in
:

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
news
On 17/12/2018 22:33, Tim J wrote:

"bert" wrote in message



If our initial schedule is the same as the EUs they cannot veto it.
They cannot veto out of political malice.

They don't get to veto any schedule. The UK is free to have any
schedule it likes just as long as it has the same tariff for all
countries that do not have a trade agreement, as her original quote
said correctly.

I think they would stuill play silly buggers.

But doing that has no effect. Any WTO signatory can do what it likes
with the tariffs it has as long as it applies the same tariff to
imports from all countries unless there is a trade agreement with that
country.

That much is true but it too simplistic a summary of the requirement.
The schedule needs certifying.

No it does not. Any WTO signatory is free to have any tariff
schedule it likes or no tariffs at all, and doesn’t need to have
it certified by the WTO before it is applied.

That should be obvious from what changes Trump
has made to US tariffs recently, with China objecting
to most of the changes. They apply anyway.

For example they could yell "unfair farming subsidies = virtual
import tarriff on French food" and claim we were iunfairtly
disadvantaging them.

No WTO rule against that.

There is no WTO rule against that, as you say, but The WTO will refuse
to certify a country's schedule while such an objection is outstanding.

Doesn’t matter what the WTO does in that regard.

That leaves a member to try and trade on uncertified schedule

Succeed in trading using an uncertified schedule in fact.

which has been done by highly trusted members.

Nothing to do with trust, any WTO signatory is free to do that.

That is after all what tariffs are about,
protecting local industry, or agriculture in that sense. That is in
fact precisely what the EU tariffs on agricultural imports do and
there is nothing in the WTO rules that disallows that. The WTO does
attempt to encourage lower tariffs, but any signatory country is free
to set whatever tariffs it likes just as long as they apply to all
imports in the absence of a trade agreement.

Cf Chinese 'dumping' ,

Dumping is a different issue to tariffs and the UK doesn't do
dumping. The EU did with some stuff, particularly with the surplus CAP
production, but even then, the WTO can't stop that from happening and
no WTO country has any veto on any schedule.

Or any other product that gets state aid. E.g. UK nuclear power
exported to them

The WTO gets no say on that either.

If a product is exported below the price it costs to produce it then
it's classified as dumping about which the WTO has a specific anti-
dumping agreement.

Yes, but it isnt good enough to just claim that
it is being exported at a price that is below what
it costs to produce it, that has to be proven.

And no one ever managed to do that with what the
EU undoubtedly did dump with the CAP surpluses
and still does with canned tomatoes particularly.

Who is to say if the UK will indulge in dumping
after Brexit?

No reason why it would start doing it after
brexit when it doesn’t do it while in the EU.

Some companies with surplus may be so desperate for
income to ease cash flow that they may well be tempted sell stockpiles
of goods it can't easily sell without selling below cost price.

And there is nothing the WTO can do about that
if that does happen,, as can be seen with what the
WTO didn’t do about the dumping of canned
tomatoes by the EU and with what was claimed
by some to be dumping of steel by China.

This
seems likely is the EU applies its WTO import tariff to goods from a non
member country.

The WTO rules don’t allow for country specific tariffs
except with a trade agreement between those countrys.