America’s membership in the World Trade Organization has been anything but beneficial. Not only have millions of jobs been lost since the U.S. entered the international trading organization, but national interests have been undermined over and over again due to WTO decisions that usurp even the nation’s cherished constitution. Here are a few examples:

Brazilian Cotton

In 2002, Brazil challenged the federal subsidies at the World Trade Organization, where it later received a favorable ruling. While that seemed like a major victory at the time, it was hardly a win. The U.S. simply ignored the ruling, kept the subsidies in place and repeatedly filed appeals with the WTO.

That was until last year, when Brazilian officials decided to target other, non-related industries with retaliatory tariffs. The WTO gave the nation the green light to impose tariffs totaling $830 million on various American-made products, including cars, drugs, textiles, chemicals, electronics, movies and music. The WTO also gave the Brazilian government the go-ahead to suspend intellectual property protections, an unprecedented move in international trade law.

Instead of agreeing to simply end the subsidies, U.S. negotiators told Brazilian officials that the subsidies could possibly be phased out over time, but not eliminated right away. To avoid the billions in tariffs targeted at other U.S. industries, the negotiators instead agreed to subsidize Brazil’s cotton industry with nearly $150 million in taxpayer money each and every year until the American subsidies are gone.

Zeroing

The practice has been ruled illegal by the WTO, and the U.S. Commerce Department’s continued use of it has led the U.S. to the brink of major trade disputes with trading partners.

Zeroing is used by the Commerce Department when determining how steep anti-dumping duties on a specific imported product from a nation should be. The practice has been highly criticized because it does not take into account the products that are sold in the U.S. at or above fair market value.

While the U.S. has not used the tool to calculate trade remedies in new disputes since 2007, the Commerce Department has used it to uphold existing duties since that time, according to reports.

The U.S. has defended the practice at the WTO numerous times over the years. Japan, the European Union and Mexico have all filed cases against the U.S. over the matter.

While the U.S. appears to be waving the white flag right now in order to avoid a whole host of retaliatory tariffs levied against U.S. products, officials say that they will fight to resume the practice through the Doha Round of global trade negotiations.

In the meantime, the U.S. will likely put a hold on the practice in order to comply with the WTO’s rules, a move which could allow underdeveloped nations such as China and Vietnam to gain an upper hand in any trade dispute with the U.S.

Chinese Off-Road Tires

U.S. tire manufacturers were dealt a major blow last month after a U.S. trade court ruled that countervailing and anti-dumping duties applied simultaneously against a Chinese manufacturer were illegal.

The U.S. Court of International Trade ruled Oct. 1 that those two separate trade remedies applied at the same time by the U.S. Commerce Department are illegal.

The ruling comes roughly two years after the Chinese company that was the target of the duties, Hebei Starbright Tyre Co., filed suit against the Department of Commerce, claiming under U.S. trade rules, it was illegal to impose anti-subsidy duties against what is considered a non-market economy.

Earlier that year, the Commerce Department had ruled that duties of 19.5 percent and 2.45 percent to 14 percent could be imposed against imports of off-road tires made by the Chinese company. Other Chinese tire producers were affected by the duties as well.

When the duties were imposed, it was discovered that Chinese off-road tires were being sold by 10.98 percent to 210.48 percent below fair market value. That allowed Chinese producers to gain an unfair advantage on U.S. producers, and helped them expand their U.S. market share.

From 2004 to 2006, imports of that type of Chinese tire increased from 11.2 million to 15 million.

Brazilian Orange Juice

Anti-dumping duties imposed on Brazilian orange juice imports ran afoul of World Trade Organization rules, the international trade body found in a ruling released in March 2011.

The WTO found that the method used to calculate the duties falls outside of the Anti-Dumping Agreement, a part of the larger WTO agreement.

The complaint was originally filed in 2008. The antidumping duties were applied earlier in the decade, around the same time that Brazil surged past the U.S. as the top producer of orange juice in the world. The duties totaled 19.19 percent to as much as 60.29 percent.

Brazil has become the world’s largest exporter of orange juice in recent years, amounting to $1.7 billion annually. Around $400 million worth of orange juice is shipped to America each year.

U.S. Gambling Laws [via BBC]

U.S. laws prohibiting cross-border gambling break trade rules, the World Trade Organization said in 2004.

The WTO case was brought by the Caribbean state of Antigua and Barbuda, host to many of the online casinos whose use is illegal in the US.

The ruling, written by a three-person panel, says the U.S. law effectively breaches a 1994 global deal which liberalizes trade in services.

But the U.S. says the ban, based on a 1961 federal law originally designed to cover telephone bets, is designed to protect against both money laundering and the exposure of vulnerable sections of society to gambling.

Chinese Chicken Products

The World Trade Organization (WTO) delivered a ruling against the U.S. ban on chicken products from China last year.

As the ruling takes effect shortly, the U.S. market will be opened up for finished chicken breasts exports from China, said the report.

In its interim ruling in June, WTO said that U.S. ban on chicken exports from China was not in accordance with its rules and regulations.

Boeing [via Reuters]

Boeing received at least $5.3 billion in improper subsidies from the United States government to develop its 787 Dreamliner and other jet models, giving it an unfair advantage against its European rival, Airbus, the World Trade Organization confirmed in a published report.

In an 850-page report, the Geneva-based trade body accepted a claim by the European Union that research and development grants provided by United States space programs contributed substantially to the technologies used in building the 787, Boeing’s latest flagship aircraft. But it said the amount of prohibited support amounted to a fraction of the more than $19 billion dating back to the late 1980s that Brussels had originally challenged.

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