Corporation and Product Identities in the Global Economy and Their Evaluation in the U.S Trade Laws

Many products are often designed, assembled, processed, or manufactured composited of parts in different national because of the increasing globalization of production and the increasing mobility of goods, services and capital across national borders. So we cannot easily make a clear distinction between what constitutes `national` corporations and `national` products versus `foreign` corporations and `foreign` products. Considering the above facts, this paper reassesses the concept of nationality on a corporation mainly based on the so-called `domestic participation` test. It is provided for the balance between the national perspective and the international one. According to this test, if corporate activities within a state qualify as substantial, socioeconomic participation in the stats`s economy, the corporation qualifies as a domestic firm, entitled to the benefits and protection of the applicable trade laws. As a subject of product identity, rules of origin are also designed to identify which of the states involved in the multinational products is the originating states. Critics propose that the following additional tests should be employed to define the substantial transformation test for its certainty and predictability a domestic content test, a technical test and a tariff-shift test. In a product identity matter, especially when two or more countries intervene in the production of a goods, the substantial transformation test in rules of origin has been recognized in the U.S. courts. However, this test in designed to cause importers to perform any value-added activities in the country where the activities are to be performed, to take and act of manufacturing or processing in that country of sufficient significance to transform the imported article into a domestic article. So, the rules of origin adopted in the U.S. may not be just about technical or technocratic considerations, but rather a reflection of political and policy preferences. Looking at the internationalization and globalization of production by corporate entities, we also have a problem to find out which party has standing to invoke the U.S. antidumping laws or the Section 201. Because the nature of the target group to be protected by the laws is less clear. So, the availability of the remedies of these laws seems to act as a king of substitute to meet an underlying political pressure against foreign competition. The assumption underlying these trade laws and policies might be that the competitiveness of the American national economy is essentially tied to the competitiveness of its national products. However, any administering agencies, like Commerce Department of the U.S, should bear a burden, having to respond simultaneously in the international business scene, evolution in the globaized trading regime, and domestic political pressure. Through this kind of process leading to the balance of internationalism and nationalism, the world trading system to which the majority of countries belong would be best served.