October 2, 2000

Center for Trade Policy Studies launches project on antidumping laws
Effort will detail cost to consumers of protectionist trade retaliation

WASHINGTON-The Cato Institute's Center for Trade Policy Studies announced today the creation of a new project on antidumping policy. Daniel J. Ikenson will join the center as a trade policy analyst to coordinate the project.

"Our new antidumping project marks an important extension of Cato's work to further free and open international competition," said Brink Lindsey, director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies. "Dan's presence will have an immediate impact on the antidumping debate."

U.S. antidumping law is a major trade barrier that penalizes foreign companies for normal business practices routinely engaged in by U.S. companies. Resistance to antidumping reform has alienated the United States from trading partners and undermined U.S. international leadership in the World Trade Organization, contributing to the collapse of the WTO talks in Seattle last year. Dozens of countries have now mimicked the United States and adopted their own antidumping laws, making U.S. exporters among the leading victims of antidumping harassment worldwide. Cato's new research and educational project will examine antidumping policy here and abroad in an effort to promote broader understanding of this potent, but poorly understood, protectionist weapon.

Ikenson, an international trade specialist and former director of International Trade Planning at the accounting and consulting firm of Pannell Kerr Forster, P.C., will coordinate the project. He brings to Cato more than 10 years of experience in the areas of antidumping planning and casework, trade database development, and trade-related quantitative analysis. Ikenson holds a master's degree in economics from George Washington University and a bachelor's degree in political science from Susquehanna University.

Cato's Center for Trade Policy Studies, established in 1998, represents a major initiative on the part of the institute to increase public understanding of the benefits of free trade and the costs of protectionism. With the arrival of Ikenson, Cato's trade center now has five full-time in-house scholars.