Beijing Starts To Play By WTO Rules. Good.

There was a time when Beijing quietly settled WTO trade complaints against China.  In the first five years after joining the organization in 2001, it didn’t contest a single complaint against it. No longer. It says it will contest the newly lodged complaints from the U.S. and the E.U. that it unfairly limits exports of [...]

Latest U.S.-China WTO Trade Dispute Baffles

There is a certain ritual to complaints to the World Trade Organization. And like many rituals its meaning can be opaque to outsiders.
The WTO action the U.S. instigated on Friday against China falls into that class. Washington alleges that Beijing is using export subsidies to promote Chinese-branded exports through cash grant rewards for exporting, preferential [...]

China Loses Its First WTO Case

China’s appeal against the World Trade Organization’s ruling in July that it was imposing discriminatory taxation on imported U.S. auto parts has failed. The WTO Appellate Body upheld the original ruling that China is violating trade rules by requiring automakers operating there to buy most components from local suppliers or face higher duties. This is [...]

Doha Trade Talks Collapse

An update to our earlier post: Pascal Lamy, director-general of the World Trade Organisation, has declared the Doha round of world trade talks dead. There is a link to an audio feed of his statement here.
The finger will continue to be pointed at China, which U.S. trade officials, say at the last moment reversed its [...]

Doha Trade Round In China’s Hands

The choice for Beijing is this: scupper the Doha round of world trade talks on behalf of the poorer countries who feel they are being asked to bear the brunt of the lowering of trade barriers necessary to strike a deal, but incur the wrath of the Americans and Europeans for doing so; or help [...]

Trade News

The E.U. and the U.S. are expected to file a joint complaint to the WTO against China in the next few days over financial news and information. At issue is Xinhua’s monopoly over providing financial information to Chinese clients. This requires the big international groups such as Reuters, Dow Jones and Bloomberg to distribute their [...]