Trade Commission Allows Asian Paper Competitors to Cheat

Of the five U.S. International Trade Commission members, only one clearly understands the meaning of the simple word “injury.

Despite that, four commissioners saw no injury to an industry that lost a fifth of its business to competitors who cheated. They saw no injury to 2,300 American workers who lost their jobs to foreign firms who broke the rules.

Those rules are the ones dealing with fair trade and fair competition. Here’s what the U.S. Department of Commerce discovered when it investigated a complaint filed by NewPage against the Asian paper companies:  The Chinese, Indonesian and South Korean governments gave subsidies to their native paper companies covering up to 44.25 percent of their costs. This enabled the paper companies to sell the glossy paper at prices lower than manufacturing costs, a practice called “dumping.