The EU has resumed its case against China at the WTO over allegations of economic coercion targeting Lithuania, an EU official said.
Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that the EU was expected to resume the case this week following a one-year suspension. It might re-suspend the proceedings again as early as next week to gather more evidence.
The EU filed a complaint against China at the WTO in 2022 as a result of trade restrictions Beijing imposed on Lithuania after the Baltic country opened a Taiwanese representative office in its capital.
Photo: EPA-EFE
China has repeatedly voiced opposition to countries engaging in official contact with the government in Taipei.
The commission, the EU’s executive arm, at the time, said that China was using economic coercion against one of its member states — a claim that the US and 17 other countries supported as third parties in the case.
In January last year, the EU decided to suspend the proceedings, setting off a year-long lobbying frenzy, with other capitals pushing Brussels not to give up for fear that it would set a bad precedent. The deadline to resume the case expires this week.
Officials from then-US president Joe Biden’s administration had urged the EU to keep pursuing the case.
Not doing so would also have risked antagonizing US President Donald Trump’s administration and some EU members.
The EU is trying to strike a balance between its initial exchanges with Trump and his advisers, who have been vocal about the bloc taking a stronger stance toward China.
The logic back then was that the EU would have likely lost the case because the required evidence was no longer there and could make the EU look weak, people familiar with the matter said.
Suspending the case was tactical, one of the people said, who like the others was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive issues.
The EU has numerous other cases at the WTO involving China, including over patent royalties.
It has also probed the second-largest economy in several areas including public tenders, the procurement of medical devices and electric vehicles, where the bloc applied tariffs last year despite immense pressure from Beijing.
With an approval rating of just two percent, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might be the world’s most unpopular leader, according to pollsters. Protests greeted her rise to power 29 months ago, and have marked her entire term — joined by assorted scandals, investigations, controversies and a surge in gang violence. The 63-year-old is the target of a dozen probes, including for her alleged failure to declare gifts of luxury jewels and watches, a scandal inevitably dubbed “Rolexgate.” She is also under the microscope for a two-week undeclared absence for nose surgery — which she insists was medical, not cosmetic — and is
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
Nintendo Co hopes to match the runaway success of the Switch when its leveled-up new console hits shelves on Thursday, with strong early sales expected despite the gadget’s high price. Featuring a bigger screen and more processing power, the Switch 2 is an upgrade to its predecessor, which has sold 152 million units since launching in 2017 — making it the third-best-selling video game console of all time. However, despite buzz among fans and robust demand for pre-orders, headwinds for Nintendo include uncertainty over US trade tariffs and whether enough people are willing to shell out. The Switch 2 “is priced relatively high”
RSS