China Upset Over Trade Duties on Products

China calls U.S. duties on paper, salts unfair

BEIJING — The decision by the United States to impose preliminary duties on Chinese coated paper and phosphate salts was unfair and discriminatory, a spokesman for China’s Commerce Ministry said in a statement seen on Saturday. The U.S. Commerce Department on Tuesday hit Chinese coated paper companies with countervailing duties ranging from 3.92 to 12.83 percent to offset government
subsidies, and in a separate action, levied Chinese companies that produce or export potassium phosphate salts with a preliminary duty of 109.11 percent.

 

“Frequent” countervailing probes by the United States into Chinese products have “unfairly restricted normal exports,” Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesman Yao Jian said in a statement seen on the ministry website.

 

The final duties on China could be higher if the U.S. Commerce Department accepts the industry’s argument that Beijing subsidizes coated paper exports by maintaining an undervalued currency against the dollar, a plaintiffs’ lawyer said.

 

If the department agrees to that, it would be the first time that U.S. countervailing duty laws have been used against China’s exchange rate regime. That makes the paper case potentially more politically explosive than other trade spats.

 

In a similar case brought by U.S. producers a few years ago, the U.S. International Trade Commission blocked final duties from going into effect.