Thread by @ChadBown

In their deals, Canada and Mexico agreed to VERs (voluntary export restraints).

If that is what the EU agrees to, the EU is in a legal bind with the WTO.

Here's why 🧵 1/

https://twitter.com/insidetrade/status/1442907213467578369

When the EU retaliated against Trump's tariffs in 2018, it did so under the argument that Trump's national security tariffs were a "safeguard measure in disguise"... 2/

piie.com/commentary/op-…

And under the Agreement on Safeguards, because there was no surge in imports for some products, the EU argued it was due immediate "compensation."

It took that compensation in the form of limited tariff retaliation... 3/
piie.com/blogs/trade-in…

However.

The Agreement on Safeguards is one part of the WTO that PROHIBITS voluntary export restraints (see Article 11)

🤓👉🏼 wto.org/english/docs_e…

4/

Other WTO agreements *encourage* VER-like outcomes.

One is the Antidumping Agreement, which suggests "price undertakings," where exporters raise their prices, and ehem, "cease" their exports

( i guess "cease" is different from "restrain")

🤓👉🏼wto.org/english/docs_e… 5/

In any case, it would seem to me the EU is making a legally inconsistent argument that

1) Trump's tariffs were a safeguard (not "national security")

2) A VER they might negotiate is WTO-consistent (when the Agreement on Safeguards is one text that explicitly says it's not)

6/

of course i am not a lawyer (though i do often play one on a podcast), and so i mainly look forward to my notifications being filled by my amazing lawyer friends debating these issues and ultimately telling me why i am wrong.

ENDS/

sorry, should have also said that the PRACTICAL implications of the EU being in a "legal bind with the WTO" are

https://twitter.com/ChadBown/status/1443288584648339465?s=20