Hardball is a game that can be played both ways

It's not often the United States suffers two blows in the same week on the trade front. As the most powerful economic bloc, the US has been more used to telling other people why they should open their markets to US goods than the other way around.

But this week, it suffered a loss at the World Trade Organization (WTO) over its system of tax breaks for exports, which could see it face punitive tariffs that would be a multiple of anything it has previously imposed on what it sees as recalcitrant trading partners.

Now it faces another inquiry into a recent law that allows US companies that complain about foreign companies dumping goods at unjustifiably low prices in the US to receive any payment the US government secures from the "offending" states.

Not surprisingly, exporters to the US claim this is an incentive for US companies to complain at will, leaving their foreign rivals to deal with the subsequent bureaucratic nightmare. Now a WTO panel is to review the legislation.

US trade envoy Mr Robert Zoellick has been making soothing noises and promoting the merits of negotiation over regulation but no doubt he will be warning the Bush Administration that hardball is a game that can be played both ways.