US China WTO Complaint on Tap This Week

On September 22, the U.S. will ask the World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement body to launch an investigation into whether China violated WTO rules and unfairly imposed tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) for rice, wheat, and corn imports. The WTO will evaluate U.S. allegations that China set "impermissible" restrictions on farm imports, failed to provide sufficient information about its import quantities, and did not disclose changes to those import quotas.As part of China's WTO accession agreement, Beijing pledged to set specific TRQ levels for various products by applying a lower tariff rate to imports up to a certain quantity and then applying higher duties to imports that exceed the threshold. If Beijing loses the case, it could be forced to accept increased amounts of U.S. grain imports or face billions of dollars in retaliatory trade actions from Washington. But any such outcome will still be well over a year or more away.