ABSTRACT
This chapter describes four categories to understand the motivations behind dumping. The four categories are: overcapacity dumping, government-sponsored dumping, tactical dumping and price discrimination, and predatory dumping. Many critics of the antidumping law argue that dumping is normal business practice and should not be punished. Instead, the United States should simply enjoy the consumer benefits of low-priced goods. Chronic excess capacity, for example, is one reason antidumping actions are so common in the steel market. Dumping is a close relative of government subsidies, and countervailing duty laws closely parallel antidumping laws. Discriminatory pricing is the practice of selling the same product in different markets at different prices. Predatory dumping is an extreme form of discriminatory pricing. To support their claim of antidumping harassment, critics frequently allege that the Commerce Department engages in everything from bias to slipshod enforcement to flawed calculations, including making artificial comparisons between different products or inflating the costs of production by assuming unrealistic overhead costs.
