Case 1.1. Made in the U.S.A. – Dumped in Brazil, Africa, and Iraq…

2.) Explain what dumping is, giving some examples. Does dumping raise any moral issues? What are they? What would an ethical relativist say about dumping?

At times a company is unable to sell their products because it may cause harm to people or the environment. When a product has been determined by the government to be unsafe and illegal to sell, the manufacturer needs to find a way to dispose of it. This is when dumping occurs. Dumping is the exporting of goods at prices lower than the home market prices. It occurs when manufacturers export a product to another country at a price either below the price charged in its home market or below its cost of production. These overseas countries generally do not have qualified health safety standards. Since dumping involves substantial export volumes of a product, it financially affects the manufacturers of the importing country. This is the case with the Tris-impregnated pajamas. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission found that the pajamas contained a flame-retardant chemical Tris, which had been found to cause kidney cancer in children. Because of its toxicity, the sleepwear couldn’t even be thrown away, let alone sold (Barry, Shaw 29). But the pajamas were exported to other countries at 10 to 30 percent of the normal wholesale price. This however is not the only case of dumping. There were also 450,000 baby pacifiers that were exported for sale overseas because they were found to cause deaths in choking babies in the United States.

Dumping definitely raises moral issues. Under the world Trade Organization Agreement, dumping is condemned if it causes or threatens to cause injury in the importing country. When manufacturers want to avoid the loss of their products, they resort to dumping. This however can harm people’s health and safety.