Sept. 8 Daily News editorial

The World Trade Organization reportedly ruled Friday that European countries have been providing Aribus illegal subsidies. The 1,000-page ruling has not been released to the public yet, but Washington two Democratic senators were quick to issue statements cheering Boeing Company’s apparent victory in the international trade court over its chief rival.

“When finalized,” Maria Cantwell wrote in a press release, “this long-awaited ruling will help restore true competition in the commericial aviation market and I applaud the WTO’s decision that government subsidies of Airbus are illegal.” Patty Murray said the ruling “confirms that Boeing has been competing on an uneven playing field for decades.”

Murray may be right about the unfair competitive advantage these subsidies have given Airbus. But we aren’t likely to get the WTO’s confirmation of that until some time next year. The European Union claims that Boeing also has been receiving what amounts to government subsidies via contracts with the Pentagon and NASA. The WTO is expected to issue a ruling on this claim next February or March.

If the WTO upholds the EU’s claim, this five-year-old trade dispute could turn out to be a wash. But even if the trade panel dismisses the claim, it’s doubtful that Boeing will realize any meaningful benefits from Friday’s ruling for some time, if at all. Notwithstanding the victory lap taken by Washington’s senators and lawmakers in Illinois, where Boeing is headquartered, the practical effect of that decision is hard to know at this point.

For one, the WTO does not impose a remedy or take punitive action when a member nation is deemed to be in violation of international trade rules. If that nation continues to break the rules, it’s up to the complaining country to take counter measures. Imposing punitive tarrifs on a number of the offending country’s exports could be one of those measures. The amount of the tariffs could be high enough to offset the damages done by the illegal practices, according to Associated Press writer Tom Raum.

But it’s much too early to be talking about any retaliatory measures. Friday’s ruling was only the first step toward resolving this long-running trade dispute. Raum writes that this process could take years to produce a final result. And by the time that final decision is issued, it could have little discernible impact on trading practices. As Raum points out, the ruling reflects government’s involvement with private industry as it was in 2004. Government subsidies that looked like unfair trading practices five years ago have become pretty much the norm today, as all industrialized nations attempt to cope with this deep recession.

The value of the WTO and its rulings is not so much to provide quick and clean resolutions to trade disputes as to help nations work through their disagreements in orderly and mutually beneficial ways.