But the USA did nothing about complying with the WTO ruling that it should stop the practice by November 1, 2000.

Now, the EU says the only way to force the USA into submission was by hitting the US companies through their exported goods.

But while the DTI reckoned it had a great deal of support from importers, I wonder how many importers will survive the additional duty. Much will depend on how the dollar behaves.

The duty started at 5% on March 1. On April 1, it went up to 6%. The duty will rise 1% a month to a maximum of a whopping 17% next March.

This, in itself, is astonishing. What's more astonishing is that there are many firms in the UK marine industry that had no idea this was about to happen.

The Americans pass it all off with a blithe "marine equipment isn't involved". To paraphrase Ms Rice-Davies: they would say that, wouldn't they?

I called the BMF to ask what they thought of it all. My contact had not heard of it: I emailed the information to Egham, complete with an Acrobat. pdf file of the EU Council Regulation (EC) No 2193/2003 of 8 December 2003.

Tony Rice at ICOMIA was more up to speed, but admitted he would have to wade through a batch of CDs to ascertain whether our industry's products are included in the hundreds of tariffs quoted.

I could tell him of one firm that I know is affected by it.

It's at times like this the industry relies heavily on its trade bodies. They are there to fight the good fight for us.

So shouldn't they have had this taped long before we found out about it after it was implemented?