August 2, 2018

US resistant to retract US$450 million fine against India
 

Despite New Dehli making several changes to its poultry import rules to ensurecompliance with global norms and starting imports from the country in April, the US is still unwilling to withdraw its US$450 million retaliation case.

The case was established based onIndia's previous seven-year ban on various US agricultural productions, including poultry meat, eggs and live pigs due to avian influenza, which the US claims as discriminatory and violated the World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.

"The retaliation panel, which was supposed to give its verdict on the dispute on July 20, has been asked by the US to hold its decision for another three months. The US is keeping India on tenterhooks despite all its demands being met," anIndia government official said.

According to a Dehli-based trade economist, before retracting the retaliation proposal, Washington might be trying to ensure that consignments that come in from the country are worth huge commercial.

"Up until now, only small consignments have been imported from the US. But this is due to demand and import rules no longer have a role to play. The US should not keep the sword hanging on India any longer," he added.

India had first asked the US to withdraw the retaliatory case at WTO in February after the country made its final set of changes to its sanitary and phytosanitary requirements for imports to align to what the US demanded.

When the first US consignment of poultry was sent to India and was cleared by the customs, New Dehli had once again, urged Washington to end the case.

However, the US had requested for WTO to postpone the date of the verdict by the retaliatory panel to July 20 and informed India that it would use the period of time to ensure that everything was in order.

"We are very sure that our rules are totally in line with the WTO ruling on the matter. That is why we requested the WTO to set up a compliance panel to verify our claim that everything is in order. Unfortunately, the retaliatory panel, which just calculates the retaliation duties to be imposed and does not go into the merit of the case, gives its verdict earlier than the compliance panel," the official stated.

In the event that the US does not go through with the withdrawal and the retaliatory panel is allowed to give its pronouncement on the retaliation amount, India is left with no choice but to put up with it till the compliance panel gives its verdict.

In 2015, US filed a case at WTO against India for restrictive avian influenza measures, which prevented American poultry products to enter the Indian market.

Following the WTO ruling in favour of the US, India made two rounds of changes in its rules on bird flu to bring it in line with the Dispute Settlement Body's ruling, but the US was not satisfied and filed a case with the retaliatory panel seeking compensation.