…As South Korea hits back at U.S. tariffs with WTO challenge***

The Federal Government has concluded arrangements to beat the February 20 deadline for payment of $494 million meant for procurement of 12 A-29 Super Tucano Light-attack aircraft from U.S., the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan-Ali has indicated.

The minister indicated this while briefing State House correspondents after the meeting of National Security Council, presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Thursday.

Ali highlighted that the procurement agreement includes the aircraft, weapons, spare parts and facilities to support training and continuous servicing. He however, said Government was looking into some of the stringent conditions attached to the procurement by the U.S. State Department, noting that “one of the stringent measures is that we will start having the aircraft from 2020, which is two years from now.

“The U.S. State Department is also thinking of not allowing Nigerian technicians to be part of the production inspection.

“But this is what we normally do in defence contracts: we send our personnel to go and understudy, especially when it comes to specialized contracts. In Russia, our personnel are permanently based where the production is being done for this MI35 helicopters.”

The minister said he informed the National Security Council that in line with the decision of the present government to increase the strength of the Armed Forces to address manpower problem, the three services had in the last two years enlisted and recruited qualified Nigerians.

He announced that the Ministry of Defence had embarked on providing befitting accommodation for members of the Armed Forces in the six geopolitical zones of the country.

He said Defence Headquarters had also provided accommodation to its personnel, which was inaugurated in Abuja last month.

“All these would go a long way in solving the accommodation problem and boost the morale of personnel serving in Abuja,’’ he added, adding that the Military Pension Verification Exercise conducted in the 36 states and
Federal Capital Territory has enabled the Military Pension Board to update its data payroll.

Meanwhile, South Korea has rapidly hit back at U.S. tariffs on washing machines and solar panels, filing challenges and demands for compensation at the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The WTO published the South Korean complaints on Thursday two days after U.S. President Donald Trump signed the steep tariffs into law.

He billed the move as a way to protect American jobs but the solar industry said it would lead to thousands of layoffs and raise consumer prices.

The 30 per cent tariff on solar panels was among the first unilateral trade restrictions imposed by the Trump administration as part of a broader protectionist agenda aimed at helping U.S. manufacturers, but which has alarmed Asian trading partners that produce lower cost goods.

South Korea challenged the U.S. tariffs under the WTO’s Safeguard Agreement, leaving open the possibility of a full trade dispute later.

The agreement gives the U. S. 30 days to settle the matter, after which South Korea has a 60-day window to impose trade sanctions, if the U.S. measures break WTO rules. It was not clear if the U. S. could challenge that assumption.

Seoul is already seeking WTO trade sanctions to retaliate for Washington’s failure to comply with an earlier WTO ruling.

On Wednesday U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross brushed off the threat of South Korea going to the WTO.

“The fact that they may get a favourable decision (at the WTO) doesn’t mean that it’s a correct decision.

”But in any event there’s been no decision yet so it’s a little bit too early to assume that the safeguards will be knocked out.”

No country has ever negotiated a settlement under the WTO safeguard rules, and it was not clear if they could provide a quicker result than a full dispute, which could take three years or more, giving U.S. manufacturers a long period of protection from competition by their South Korean rivals.

Under WTO rules, a country can impose safeguards – temporary emergency tariffs – to shield its domestic industry from an sudden, unforeseen and damaging surge in imports.

Ricardo Meléndez-Ortiz, the Head of the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, said the solar tariffs would fail to boost U.S. solar manufacturing and would destroy U.S. jobs while impeding the fight against climate change.

“These tariffs are insufficient to really generate enough stimulus to create the manufacturing capacity that they are trying to stimulate,” he told Reuters.

“It’s just going to slow down the production of sustainable energy and solar in the U.S., in a big way.”