Antidumping Provisions in Preferential Trade Agreements
Using information culled from 217 PTAs we find that nearly three out of four PTAs include either additional AD rules or prohibit the use of AD against PTA members. PTA rules generally either prohibit AD protection against members or make AD protection harder to apply. As a result, PTAs may further tilt the playing field toward members by shifting contingent protection toward non-members – protection diversion. We examine AD usage patterns by NAFTA countries as a case study of PTA rules. We find evidence that NAFTA rules have discouraged the intra-North American use of AD and likely increased the incidence against non-NAFTA countries. We also discuss usage trends across a wider set of PTAs and again find evidence that PTA rules have altered the pattern of AD activity, likely lowering the incidence against members and shifting the restrictions to non-members.