China did not follow proper procedures when it imposed trade restrictions on agricultural imports, the WTO said on Thursday in a ruling that bolsters US President Donald Trump’s dispute against Beijing.
China used a flawed and opaque approach when it administered tariff-rate quotas for rice, wheat, and corn, the Geneva-based arbiter of global trade disputes said on its Web site.
Its tariff-rate quota “administration contains legal flaws from the beginning through to the completion of the process,” the text of the ruling said.
The decision could increase US farmers’ access to China at a time when they are struggling to compete amid the fallout from Trump’s trade dispute.
The US Department of Agriculture previously said that Beijing’s actions prevented an additional US$3.5 billion of crops being imported into China.
The Chinese Ministry of Commerce said that it “regrets” the ruling in a statement published on Friday, adding that it would review the report and continue to manage agricultural product tariff-rate quotas based on WTO rules.
The ruling “will help American farmers compete on a more level playing field,” the Office of the US Trade Representative said in an e-mailed statement after the decision.
“The administration will continue to press China to promptly come into compliance with its WTO obligations,” it said.
Either the US or China could appeal the case at any point in the next 60 days. If the ruling is upheld, China must revise its quota programs or face the prospect of trade retaliation from Washington.
As part of China’s WTO accession agreement, Beijing pledged to set specific quota levels for wheat, corn and rice by applying a lower tariff rate to imports up to a certain quantity and then applying higher duties to imports that exceed the threshold.
The US complaint alleged that China never reached its agreed-upon threshold, despite lower global prices that favored the importation of grains into China.
The panel separately rejected US allegations that China contravened its public notice obligation related to tariff-rate quotas.
The US had alleged that Beijing’s procedures were not clearly specified and prevented exporters from filling the quotas.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure