China has filed a case against the United States at the World Trade Organization (WTO) over Washington's tariffs on imports, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said on Monday (September 802.09.2019, XNUMX).
The United States began imposing 15% tariffs on a range of Chinese goods on Sunday, including footwear, smart watches and flat-screen TVs, while China slapped new taxes on US oil., in the latest escalation of their trade war.
China did not release details of its legal case but said the U.S. tariffs affected $300.000 billion worth of Chinese exports.
The latest tariff actions violated the consensus reached by Chinese and U.S. leaders at a meeting in Osaka, the Commerce Ministry said in the statement. China will defend its legal rights in accordance with WTO rules, it said.
The suit is the third that Beijing has filed to challenge U.S. tariffs at the WTO, an international organization that limits the tariffs each country can charge.
U.S. officials say they are penalizing China for intellectual property theft that is not covered by WTO rules, although many trade experts say any tariff increases above the maximum allowed must be justified under trade rules.
Many experts also denounce China's decision to fight fire with fire by imposing tariffs on American products imported into China, also without WTO approval.
On Friday, the United States published a written defense in the first of three legal cases, saying China and the U.S. agreed the issue should not be heard at the WTO.
“China has made a unilateral decision to take aggressive industrial policy measures to steal or unfairly acquire technology from its trading partners; the United States has taken tariff measures to try to achieve the elimination of China's unfair and distorting technology transfer policies."He said.
China chose to respond not by addressing US concerns but with its own tariffs, “in an effort to maintain its unfair policies indefinitely.”
The US filing also said its actions were exempt from WTO rules because they were "measures necessary to protect public morals"a clause used in the past to defend commercial restrictions on gambling, animal rights and public broadcasting.
Under WTO rules, Washington has 60 days to try to resolve the latest dispute. China could then ask the body to rule, a process that would take several years. It could end with China getting WTO approval to take trade sanctions, if the US is found to have broken the rules.
Source: Reuters
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