House Republican leaders had hoped to assuage some of those worries by pushing through a bill that would make it easier to penalize subsidized imports from China.

When subsidized imports undercut their products, they starve.

The European biodiesel producers have urged the EU to impose punitive duties on these subsidized imports.

Similarly, UK recyclers cannot compete against subsidized imports of waste German paper and board, the government alleges.

And five-member binational boards will hear appeals of cases where government agencies determine that there has been dumping or approve a countervailing duty on what they consider an unfairly subsidized import.

Anger over a flood of subsidized agricultural imports from the European Community and the community barriers against Poland's products has bolstered the already substantial power of the rural lobby.

Those subsidies - more than the domestic output of sub-Saharan Africa - make it nearly impossible for farmers in poor countries to compete against subsidized imports, losing out in their own markets and with little chance of exporting.

Nafta created jobs, but not fast enough to keep pace with rising competition from China, or with a labor force that swelled with Mexican farmers displaced by subsidized American imports.

Under trade laws, the United States can impose countervailing duties against subsidized imports found to injure a domestic industry.

The unfair-trade laws are the device most often resorted to by industries seeking relief from subsidized or dumped imports.