Boeing WTO Bill Would Violate Treaty
In a rare letter to the Speaker of the House, EADS North America’s chairman has warned that a bill Boeing would like to see passed that would punish EADS for violating the World Trade Organization’s restrictions on trade subsidies would itself violate the international body’s rules.
Ralph Crosby wrote Rep. Nancy Pelosi that passage would violate “the WTO treaty which forbids punitive action taken on trade matters being adjudicated by te organization.”
Crosby also rejected claims by Boeing that EADS has traded with Iran. “I assure you that these allegations are untrue,” Crosby wrote, accusing the Chicago-based company of “resorting to falsehoods” — lying to you and me — “as their only possible tool to prevent the fair competition” to which the the Pentagon has committed itself.
Colleague Jim Wolf, with Reuters, was one of a small band of reporters who spoke with Boeing’s VP of government relations, Timothy Keating, who made the Iran allegation. Here’s what Jim reported yesterday:
He cited an EADS effort to market one of its helicopters at an Iranian air show. The event in question took place in 2005, Boeing officials later said, supplying the transcript and a link to video of an NBC television report at the time.
“We have not seen any indication that EADS no longer has an interest in marketing their military products to countries like Iran,” Daniel Beck, a Boeing spokesman, said in a followup telephone interview.
In his letter to Pelosi, Crosby points to the on-time or early delivery of 100 Army Light Utility helicopters to the U.S. military as proof of the company’s record, one that he says is “much more important than ill-advised and untrue allegations by a competitor.”
