Posted October 9, 2013
U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman recently
announced that the World Trade Organization (WTO) has formally adopted the
dispute settlement panel’s report in China’s anti-dumping and countervailing
duty cases against imports of U.S. chicken products, according to an article by
The Poultry Site, available here.
The WTO formally adopted a dispute settlement panel
report from August 2, 2013 in favor of the United States which found that China’s
imposition of duties on U.S. chicken “broiler products” violates international trade
rules. The WTO dispute settlement report
is available here.
The ruling was welcomed by the U.S., which began
dispute settlement consultations with China in September 2011, but was forced
to request the WTO dispute panel after consultations were unsuccessful,
according to an article by Global Meat News, available here. China has accepted the decision and will not
appeal.
U.S. Trade Representative Froman said, “Given the
wide-ranging violations found by the WTO, I hope that China’s acceptance of the
WTO’s decision without appeal signals a recognition by China that it needs to
take a serious look at its trade remedies regime and bring its rules,
procedures and practices into line with its WTO obligations.”
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, noted that
China was major market for U.S. chicken before the duties were imposed,
importing 613,000 metric tons of US broiler meat in 2009. After China imposed the duties in 2010,
however, U.S. chicken exports to China fell by 90 percent.
For more information on the U.S.-China poultry dispute
and the WTO panel decision, a recent post from this blog is available here.
For more information on International Agricultural
Trade, please visit the National Agricultural Law Center’s website, here.
