The World Trade Organization's ruling that authorizes China to impose 645 million of compensatory tariffs against the United States is a victory for multilateralism and free trade, and highlights the failure of the US to abide by WTO rules that it's obliged to follow, experts and business leaders said on Thursday.
Their comments came after the trade body decided on Wednesday to allow China to impose the tariffs. This followed China's challenge at the Geneva-based organization in 2012 against countervailing duty investigations by the US that led to the imposition of anti-subsidy duties from 2008 to 2012 on 22 Chinese products ranging from solar panels to steel wire.
China also challenged the US claim that majority government ownership is sufficient to treat an enterprise as a "public body".
"The ruling was of great significance to rebut the illicit countervailing practices of the US, protect the legitimate trade interests of Chinese enterprises and safeguard the multilateral trading system," the Ministry of Commerce said in an online statement.
Estados Unidos debe dejar de buscar excusas y tomar medidas inmediatas para corregir sus irregularidades en las investigaciones de remedios comerciales contra China, dice el comunicado.
Analysts said the ruling has again sent a clear message that the US violated WTO trade rules. The decision also boosts global confidence in the multilateral trading system's authority, they added.
"The ruling is important to correct wrong practices in global trade by some countries. It is expected to serve as a measure to punish unilateral and hegemonistic behavior," said Huo Jianguo, vice-chairman of the China Society for World Trade Organization Studies.
Xia Aimin, CEO of Tianjin Shangdian Qinding Energy Technology Co, who previously worked for a company that went bankrupt after the imposition of US anti-subsidy tariffs, said the ruling was an example of "belated, but welcome justice".
Los productos de paneles solares chinos continúan siendo muy populares en los mercados globales gracias a su alto nivel de calidad y precios competitivos, dijo. Debido a sus experiencias en disputas comerciales recientes, las empresas chinas ahora están mejor preparadas para hacer negocios en los mercados globales, agregó Xia.
Lin Shen, investigador del Instituto de Economía y Política Mundial de la Academia de Ciencias Sociales de China, dijo que la mejor manera de llevar a cabo el libre comercio, como Estados Unidos siempre afirma que quiere, es observar las reglas de la OMC.
It is groundless for some countries to negate China's status as being a developing country and make wrongful allegations about China's economic model, including criticisms of Chinese State-owned enterprises' ways of doing business, which abide by market rules, he added.
En noviembre de 2019, la OMC otorgó a China el derecho de imponer aranceles de represalia por valor de 3580 millones de dólares a productos estadounidenses después de encontrar fallas en algunas medidas antidumping de Estados Unidos contra China.
En 2018 y 2019, EE. UU. también impuso aranceles adicionales a las importaciones chinas, pero un panel de la OMC dictaminó en 2020 que EE. UU. incumplió sus obligaciones en el marco de la OMC.
