American direct marketers will be paying a lot more for European-made products, including assorted grades of paper for their brochures, catalogs and mailers, after Feb. 1.
That’s when the Clinton Administration plans to impose $520 million in punitive import duties on items from 14 European Union member countries in retaliation for their preferential treatment to British and French-owned companies over American companies in the importation of bananas in Europe.
A detailed list of the products affected by the new tariffs is scheduled to be filed with the World Trade Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, on Jan. 25. Last week Trade Ambassador Rita Hayes refused to indicate just what products would be on that list.
The list will not include European wines. The administration excluded them at the request of the U.S. wine industry, which is negotiating a separate agreement with the EU.
Roscoe B. Starek III, the Direct Marketing Association’s senior vice president for catalog affairs, said the action, essentially doubling the tariffs on most European made goods would lead to a step rise in the price of paper marketers use for catalogs and other advertising materials. He was unable to say how much those prices would increase or when they would likely go into effect.
U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky said the $520 million represented the Administration’s estimate “of the annual harm done to the U.S. economy” by the EU’s refusal to exclude U.S. companies like Chiquita Brands International Inc. and Dole Foods Co., from the European banana market.
Although the EU has repeatedly rejected U.S. offers to negotiate a settlement of the dispute, Barshefsky said the administration has formally asked the WTO’s dispute settlement body to step in and attempt to resolve the dispute. The EU, she alleged, has repeatedly refused to honor several favorable rulings won by the US, and the banana producing countries of Mexico, Ecuador, Guatemala and Honduras.
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