China fires back at US tariffs with WTO complaint

Chinese President Xi Jinping (C) meets with European Council President Donald Tusk (L) and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on Monday in Beijing. The office will accept public comments and will conduct hearings on the plan around August 20 to 23, before coming to a consensus by August 31, as per a Business Standard report.

Chinese leaders have tried to defuse foreign pressure by promising foreign companies better treatment without changing their industrial development strategies.

Investment in factories, housing and other fixed assets decelerated in the latest quarter, down 1.5 percentage points from the first quarter.

Louis Kuijs is the head of Asia Economics at the Oxford Economics research group.

Alaistair Chan of Moody’s told the AFP news agency: “China’s economy appears to be on a slowing path”.

While the GDP figures were in line with market expectations, the new data also showed slower-than-expected growth in China’s industrial output, pointing to slowing momentum and prompting some analysts to call for stronger government measures to support growth. “With growth tilting toward domestic demand, China’s vulnerability to a potential trade war is arguably diminishing”. European leaders have criticized Trump’s tactics but share USA criticism of China’s industrial policy and market barriers.

The United States has imposed tariffs of 25 per cent on steel and 10 per cent on aluminum on the grounds that the imported metals pose a threat to US national security. It could deploy measures against US multinational companies operating in China such as consumer boycotts.

But forecasters said the downturn is likely to deepen as Beijing tightens financial controls and trade tensions worsen.

“I want to hear if any big company here would like to make a complaint here on the theft of intellectual property”, said the premier.

Darson Chiu is a researcher at the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research.

China has repeatedly said it can weather a trade war better than the USA but the prospect of tariffs on as much as $500bn of Chinese goods has anxious investors and businesses.

China imported American goods worth $13.6 billion. He said that China imports only $130 billion in American goods.

Washington and Beijing have already imposed tit-for-tat tariffs on $34bn (£25.6bn) of goods but the USA raised the stakes last week by threatening to impose extra charges on another $200bn (£151bn) worth of goods.

In this Friday, July 6, 2018 photo, Larry Enders holds out some soy beans on his farm in Bremen, Ind. Enders estimates that he’s already lost about $23,000 on the value of last year’s harvest since the tariff battle between the United States and several of its trading partners got underway several months ago.

The two sides are firmly committed to fostering an open world economy, promoting trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, and resisting protectionism and unilateralism.

“The tension between the two countries is not simply on trade, but in anything that the Chinese government thinks happens to be in the US economic interest”, he said.

ENERGY: Benchmark U.S. crude fell $1.11 to $69.90 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The EU has called on China, the U.S. and Russian Federation to refrain from damaging trade wars and instead work together to reform the multilateral trading system.

Despite the slowdown, China’s trade surplus with the USA hit a record high in June, widening to $29bn, from $24.6 in May. China’s foreign ministry described the Trump administration’s threats as “typical bullying” and said that China will look to counter-attack to safeguard its interests. Resolving global trade disputes is a key role of the WTO.