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FRICTION ON TRADE INCREASING EU plans for $4 billion in retaliatory tarife on U.S. products
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RADE TENS IONS ESCALATED
this month as the European Union adopted a plan for retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports because of a corporate tax break. That tax exemption is important to U.S. exporters, including chemical companies. The EU trade sanctions, approved by the World Trade Organization and worth $4 billion, would start in March 2004 ifCongress has not repealed the corporate tax break by then. WTO says the tax break amounts to an un-
CATALYSIS
fair subsidy for U.S. exporters. According to the American Chemistry Council, chemical manufacturers collectively benefited by about $415 million from this tax exemption in 2001, with life sciences firms getting some $750 million. The tax break initially applied to income from foreign sales corporations—subsidiaries established by U.S. companies outside of U.S. territory Later, it allowed firms to exclude part of foreign sales income from federal taxes.
WTO ruled against both versions and said the EU could impose up to $4 billion in retaliatory sanctions on U.S. imports. EU officials have been waiting for Congress to repeal the tax break for nearly two years, and the retaliation plan shows their patience is wearing thin. Aphaseout of the exemption is part of corporate tax-cut legislation pending in Congress that is unlikely to get passed before the end of 2003. Whether the EU would be satisfied with aphaseout—and not immediate repeal—ofthe tax break remains to be seen. Inflaming this situation is a Nov 10 WTO ruling against U.S. steel safeguards which impose tariffs on many types of imported steel.—CHERYL H0GUE
INFLAMED Recent WTO ruling on U.S. steel safeguards has added to trade tensions.
stitute of Technology, Zurich, says, "There are other examples of synthetic hosts that display recognition-controlled reactivity, but none has demonstrated such GOTCHA potent activation of Folding of this molecule... an otherwise reluctant reaction." And according to Steven C. Zimmerresearchers use a molecule that man, a chemistry self-assembles into a bowl with a professor at the Unicarboxyl group extending from versity of Illinois, the rim and pointing into the Urbana-Champaign, bowl's cavity The cavity can host the bowl "appears to tertiary amines, such as quinucli- accelerate the reacdine, that are held in place by non- tion through stratebonding interactions. Treatment gies attributed to with diazomethane converts the enzymes: bindingdangling carboxyl group into a induced proximity, ... creates a space for facile methyl ester group. An amine precise alignment of methyl transfer that displaces solvent molecules functional groups, in the bowl rapidly captures the and differential soldangling methyl group at room vation of the transitemperature \J. Am. Chem. Soc, tion state. All this published online Nov 8, http:// leads to facile methyl transfer. The next dx.doi.org/10.1021/ja036595q}. Commenting on the work, step would be to François Diederich, a chemistry build in turnover."— professor at the Swiss Federal In- MAUREEN R0UHI
REVVING UP AN OLD REACTION
Molecular recognition accelerates methyl transfer from ester to amine
M
ETHYLATION OF TERTIARY
amines by esters first appeared in the literature in 1902. Except for certain special cases, the reaction is slow, taking up to days even at temperatures above 100 °C. Now, Scripps Research Institute chemists Byron W. Purse, Pablo Ballester, and Julius RebekJr. have dramatically sped it up using molecular recognition principles. The work offers a simple model for catalyzing reactions—that is, by spatial positioning of reactants and eliminating solvent molecules from the reaction center through a supramolecular assembly To accelerate the reaction, the HTTP://WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG
C & E N / N O V E M B E R 17. 2003
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