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The
U.S. Trade Representative's office said it is making claims that
China's anti-dumping and countervailing duties violate WTO
rules, partly because China failed to properly calculate U.S.
poultry production costs.
China also failed to conduct transparent investigations and
breached WTO rules in its finding that U.S. poultry exports have
injured Chinese producers, USTR said.
The complaint is the 12th challenge brought by the Obama
administration against China at the WTO and marks its second
objection following China's 2010 imposition of anti-dumping
duties on U.S. broiler chicken products of up to 105.4 percent
and anti-subsidy duties of up to 30.3 percent.
It comes at a time of increasing U.S.-China trade tensions as
China's economic slowdown has flooded markets worldwide with
exports of manufactured goods.
U.S. steel and aluminum producers have filed several major
anti-dumping complaints against China in recent weeks with the
U.S. Commerce Department and International Trade Commission.
"Today's action holds China accountable for unfair taxes that
they are imposing on American exports of broiler chicken
products," U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said in a
statement.
China re-examined and lowered the duties on U.S. broiler chicken
products in 2014 after the WTO accepted U.S. arguments that they
violated WTO rules. Current anti-dumping duties are up to 73.3
percent and anti-subsidy taxes up to 4.2 percent.
However, USTR said it believed the China's revised duties, which
affect producers such as Tyson Foods Inc <TSN.N> and Pilgrim's
Pride Corp <PPC.N>, were still not in compliance with WTO rules.
U.S. senators from poultry-producing states cheered the new
challenge.
"The United States has been the only country that has been
willing to challenge China's compliance at the World Trade
Organization," said U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, a Republican
from Georgia.
"Trade works when the rules are followed, and it is imperative
that China, the world's second-largest economy, lives up to the
rules it agreed to when it joined the WTO in 2001," Isakson
added.
(Reporting By David Lawder; Editing by Richard Pullin)
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