THE World Trade Organization s top court upheld some Chinese objections Friday to an earlier ruling that had backed the right of the United States to impose extra duties on Chinese goods that Washington argued were both unfairly priced and subsidized.
China had brought the case before the World Trade Organization in September 2008 to challenge U.S. duties set on steel pipes, woven sacks and some off-road tires. Last October, a WTO panel rejected almost all of China s claims.
But China asked WTO appeals judges to take another look. The appeals judges decided Friday that the United States had illegally imposed two classes of punitive duties of up to 20 percent on Chinese exports in 2007. They found that the United States could not apply both anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties on the pipes, sacks and tires.
China s mission to the WTO in Geneva said it welcomes a decision that strikes at the heart of how the United States has applied countervailing duties to Chinese products, not only in the four investigations at issue in this dispute but also in the many investigations that have come since.
The WTO has conclusively established that the United States acts unlawfully in the methods by which it calculates and imposes countervailing duties on imports from China, the Chinese mission said in a statement.
The WTO s dispute settlement body is expected to adopt the appeals judges report with 30 days.(SD-Agencies)
