This trade enforcement action marks the 14th complaint brought by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) against China at the WTO since 2009.
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Ward added, “Despite years of work by USA Rice and USDA to open the Chinese market, we still have no access for U.S. grown rice”.
The United States has filed a formal complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) against China for setting prices for certain crops above market levels, leading to unfair subsidies that violate WTO rules, US President Barack Obama said in a statement released by the White House on Tuesday. The administration says China’s support for those products in 2015 exceeded by $100 billion the levels China committed to when joining the WTO.
The National Association of Wheat Growers (N.A.W.G.) and U.S. Wheat Associates (U.S.W.) welcomed the new trade enforcement action against China.
Alan Tracy, president of the U.S. Wheat Associates, said China routinely guarantees its farmers more than $10 per bushel for their wheat and that artificially pushes up production, distorting the global market and robbing U.S. exporters of sales.
China announces each year the minimum prices the government will pay for rice, wheat, and corn during the harvest season.
“Through tariff cuts and the removal of other trade barriers, China has gone from a $2-billion-a-year market for US agricultural products to a $20-billion-plus market”, Mr. Vilsack said. China’s excessive market price support for rice, wheat and corn inflates Chinese prices above market levels, creating artificial government incentives for Chinese farmers to increase production. “But we could be doing much better, particularly if our grain exports could compete in China on a level playing field”.
“These programs distort Chinese prices, undercut American farmers, and clearly break the limits China committed to when they joined the WTO”, US Trade Representative Michael Froman said in a statement. “This has resulted in significant losses to American producers”.
“Even as USA support for American farmers and ranchers declines, we have seen a tremendous and steady rise in foreign barriers to trade which is troubling”.
There’s been bipartisan criticism from lawmakers about China’s trade policies, and previous year the House Agriculture Committee held a series of hearings to review foreign ag subsidies and their impact on the US farm sector. “We also believe the WTO provides structure and accountability for global trade”.
“I am very hopeful that beyond the challenges announced today, that the US government will also vigorously pursue a case against China concerning its cotton policy which has wreaked havoc on our domestic producers”, said Conaway, who hails from Texas, the biggest USA cotton-producing state. The United States has won all cases decided so far.
N.A.W.G. president Gordon Stoner, a wheat grower from Outlook, Mont., said, “This enforcement action shows a welcome willingness to defend farmers against governments that blatantly disregard the rules of the road under their trade agreements”.
Conaway has long raised concerns about the actions of foreign competitors and has frequently called on the Obama Administration to initiate WTO challenges against the high and rising foreign subsidies, tariffs, and non-tariff trade barriers.
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All WTO members are required to submit totals for domestic crop support yearly to the WTO, Froman said, but China has not done that in six years.
