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China slams US for steep aluminum import tariffs
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CHINA yesterday expressed its strong displeasure with US steep import duties on aluminum products from China, with an official saying that the country will take “necessary measures” to defend its interests.
“The United States ignored rules of the World Trade Organization and seriously damaged the interests of Chinese aluminum foil exporters,” Wang Hejun, head of the trade remedy and investigation bureau under the Ministry of Commerce, said in an online statement.
The US Department of Commerce on Tuesday announced a final ruling to impose stiff anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties on Chinese aluminum foil.
China has accused Donald Trump’s government of disrupting global trade regulation by taking action under US law instead of through the WTO.
In the investigations, the US still treated China as “a non-market economy” based on its domestic laws and used the “surrogate country” approach to calculate unreasonably high anti-dumping duties ranging from 48.64 percent to 106.09 percent, Wang said.
Under the “surrogate country” approach, importing countries can easily adopt trade remedies by using production and price data in a third country to calculate the degree of dumping. It expired on December 11, 2016, according to the protocol on China’s accession to the WTO nearly two decades ago.
Wang said the anti-subsidy duties ranging from 17.16 percent to 80.97 percent were also groundless. “The US Department of Commerce wrongly identified Chinese raw material providers and financial institutions as ‘public institutions.’”
“China will take necessary measures to defend its interests in response to the wrong practice of the United States,” Wang said, without providing more details.
The US has said aluminum foil imports from China jeopardize its domestic industries.
Many US businesses withdrew from aluminum foil production to direct more resources into other aluminum markets that were more profitable more than 20 years ago, Wang said.
“Dropping US aluminum foil output and shrinking market shares are attributed to the choices of US producers, rather than imports.”
Instead of reviving domestic industries, the unreasonable, excess trade remedy measures by the US will curb domestic employment and harm the benefits of US consumers, Wang said.
The independent US International Trade Commission is due to vote in April on the separate question of whether domestic industry has been harmed by the imports.
Should the ITC fail to find in the affirmative, the tariffs will be canceled. The commission rarely blocks the imposition of tariffs.
The US Department of Commerce claims to have launched 102 such trade cases, nearly doubling the number of actions brought by the prior administration during the same period.
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