South Korea has launched a dispute at the World Trade Organization to complain about U.S. punitive tariffs on South Korean washing machines, the WTO said on Thursday.
Regular readers may recall that a United States trade panel approved anti-dumping duties on imports worth hundreds of millions of dollars from South Korea and Mexico in January, following a complaint by Whirlpool. This was primarily aimed at LG, Samsung and Daewoo, with Daewoo appearing to fare worst from the three.
The panel unanimously backed of Whirlpool cleared the way for the Commerce Department to issue five-year duty orders on imports manufactured by Samsung , LG and other brands.
South Korea’s complaint focuses on the way the United States measures “dumping” of imported goods, or selling at unfairly low prices. The United States has agreed to change its calculation methods after a series of similar complaints from other trading partners.
Under WTO rules, the United States has 60 days to deal with South Korea’s concerns, or Seoul could ask the world trade body to adjudicate, with the goal of eventually overturning the U.S. tariffs.
The U.S. Trade Representative’s office has yet to comment on the South Korean challenge.