Another bumpy year for U.S.-China trade

But concern about damaging the fragile U.S. economic recovery or alienating the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt is likely to limit any action by President Barack Obama or the U.S. Congress to force China to raise the value of its currency, the biggest irritant in the trade relationship.

“I'd be surprised if there is major restrictive legislation,” said Ed Gresser, director of the trade and global markets project at the Democratic Leadership Council, a centrist Democratic group. Democrats control Congress.

Instead, most of the tension is likely to come from U.S. companies filing new import injury cases against China at the Commerce Department or the U.S. government filing new trade complaints against Beijing at the World Trade Organization.

U.S. steel producers, other industry groups and union workers have filed dozens of cases in recent years accusing Chinese competitors of receiving government subsidies and selling goods in the United States at unfairly low prices.

With a few exceptions, the International Trade Commission (ITC) has approved substantial tariffs under anti-dumping and countervailing duty orders renewable every five years.

Roger Schagrin, a lawyer involved in some of the biggest cases against China, said he sees fertile ground for “a lot more dumping and subsidy cases” in 2010.

“Name the product, China has created massive overcapacity. They're going to export it. It's not going to be consumed in China. ... That creates a natural conflict,” Schagrin said.

In 2009, the trade action that received the most attention was Obama's decision, in response to a complaint from union workers, to slap a 35 percent tariff on Chinese-made tires.

It was a milestone event because former President George W. Bush had turned down all such requests for relief under a provision of U.S. trade law known as Section 421.

Despite predictions that Obama would face a flood of similar cases, no new petitions have been filed yet.

1|2|Next Page>>

SharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Terms

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos
 Respond to this email