The United States has asked the World Trade Organization to establish a dispute settlement panel to rule on U.S. claims that China is unfairly continuing anti-dumping duties on U.S. broiler chicken products. Reuters reports that the U.S. Trade Representative’s office made the request after talks with Chinese officials failed to solve the issue.
China first imposed the duties on chicken imports from the United States in 2010 on grounds they were priced below fair market value and this was injuring Chinese producers. China revised the duties lower in 2014 after the WTO agreed with U.S. objections that the original duties violated WTO rules.
USTR on May 10 brought a new challenge to China's revised anti-dumping duties, arguing they violate WTO rules partly because China failed to properly calculate U.S. poultry production costs and failed to conduct transparent investigations.
The USDA estimates that American poultry producers have lost more than $1 billion in revenue since the tariffs were established. Annual exports of chicken to China have dropped by 90 percent since 2002.
