US cuts trade benefits for India, Brazil

WASHINGTON: Gold necklaces from India, an alloy from Brazil and 23 other developing country products will no longer receive US duty-free treatment, the US Trade Representative's office said on Monday. The decision was the result of an annual review of the Generalized System of Preferences, a program created in 1974 that allows 132 developing countries to export nearly 5,000 products to the United States without paying tariffs.

The United States imported $30.8 billion worth of goods under the GSP program in 2007. As a result of the latest review, 25 products that accounted for about $1.4 billion of the 2007 imports will no longer receive duty-free treatment, USTR said.

Partly because of frustration with India and Brazil's role in the Doha round of world trade talks, Congress passed tougher criteria for the GSP program in December 2006. Lawmakers such as Sen. Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, said they were annoyed India and Brazil received duty-free treatment under the program but were refusing in the Doha round to open their own markets to more imported goods.