U.S. Stops Cotton Payments Brazil Will Trade Retaliation Against U.S.

A senior Brazilian official said on the 19th that if the U.S. Congress refuses to comply with the WTO ruling, the U.S. exports to Brazil may face new obstacles due to illegal cotton subsidies for Brazil.

Brazil’s Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota said: “The final suspension of payments for cotton will constitute a breach of bilateral agreements. Brazil will take measures against imports from the United States, including measures against intellectual property rights. The WTO has authorized Brazil to do so. do."

The U.S. House of Representatives voted this week to suspend payment of 147 million U.S. dollars in Brazil's cotton industry each year. The money given to Brazil is also considered a non-productive and expensive subsidy. Since last year, the United States has paid for Brazil. Prior to this, the World Trade Organization authorized Brazil to implement trade retaliation against the United States for 829 million U.S. dollars each year because the WTO determined that the U.S. government's subsidies to cotton farmers were illegal.

The bill must be voted in the US Senate, so the final result is not yet certain.

In recent years, Brazil has won several rounds of trade frictions against the United States. Patriota said that the United States Senate decided to give up the import tax on ethanol fuel in Brazil. This has encouraged the Brazilian government. He hopes that the US House of Representatives will also agree with the Senate decision.

On June 16, the US Senate voted to repeal 54 cents per gallon of Brazilian sugarcane ethanol import tariffs. Import tariffs made Brazilian sugar cane ethanol less competitive than less efficient US corn ethanol, but it must also be passed by the House of Representatives. Therefore, the final The result is still uncertain.

Regarding another case, Patriota said that Brazil is pleased to see this week’s decision by the U.S. government not to challenge the WTO ruling, which will help the export of Brazilian orange juice to the United States.

In March this year, the WTO ruled against the so-called “return to zero”, saying that the United States established a minimum import price for orange juice based on “return to zero”. Any imported orange juice below this price will be subject to import surcharges.