WTO: U.S. pitches remedies to enforce environmental level playing field

The World Trade Organization should treat a country’s failure to uphold basic environmental standards as a subsidy and allow other members to impose countervailing duties to offset the benefit received by an industry that does not meet “a threshold of fundamental standards,” the U.S. proposed in Geneva last week. The proposal took the form of a draft ministerial decision called “Advancing Sustainability Goals through Trade Rules to Level the Playing Field” and dated Dec. 17. The U.S. also referenced its...