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“Sometimes, when you try to do the right thing, everyone winds up unhappy.

“That seems to be the case when it comes to the Obama Administration’s response to a series of decisions at the World Trade Organization (WTO) that how the U.S. government determines whether a company is dumping goods into the country violates WTO rules.

“Over the past several months, the Obama administration has quietly set in motion a process to comply with WTO rulings regarding the use of “zeroing” in calculating dumping margins.

“What ought to be viewed as a good-faith effort to comply with our international trade obligations has instead turned into a Christmas tree of complaints. U.S. trading partners continue to suggest that the United States hasn’t complied as quickly or completely as they would like, while supporters of the practice in Congress and elsewhere are upset that the administration has done anything at all.

“While it’s easy to find fault in the byzantine world of antidumping regulations, both sides are missing the larger picture. The Administration has taken a politically-difficult step to bring the United States into compliance with its trade obligations, which is good for the country and for the trading system.”