Labor & Employment Law

U.S., European Union File Complaint Over China?s Trade Restrictions

By James Parks

The Obama administration and the European Union (EU) announced yesterday they plan to jointly file a complaint at the World Trade Organization (WTO) over China’s trade restrictions on exports of key raw materials used to manufacture products such as baseball bats, contact lenses and plumbing fixtures.

When China joined the WTO in 2001, it committed to remove the export restrictions on the raw materials. The export restraints are significant because China is the largest global producer of many of the raw materials in question?bauxite, coke, zinc, silicon metal, silicon carbide, fluorspar, yellow phosphorous, magnesium and manganese.

United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard applauded the WTO filing, saying: 

China should have removed these trade barriers years ago as violations of WTO commitments that hurt our workers across a number of manufacturing industries. China must stop destroying our family-supportive jobs by tilting the playing field in their favor.

Today’s action sends a signal that America is beginning to get serious about enforcing the rules. But it’s only the first step in what must be a comprehensive approach to get China to start playing by the rules.

For the past two years, the Bush administration considered filing such a case but failed to act. U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said after two years “it was well past time” to act.

We are deeply troubled at what appears to be a conscious policy to create unfair advantages for Chinese industries that use these raw materials.

The WTO complaint follows a victory for workers last week when the International Trade Commission ruled in favor of a trade petition filed in April by the USW to slow a torrent of tire exports to the United States in recent years. Those exports have cost thousands of U.S. jobs.

Under WTO rules, the parties have up to 60 days to try to resolve the dispute. At that point, the United States would be able to request that a dispute settlement panel hear the case. The WTO process, ncluding a panel report and any appellate ruling, takes about a year.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on June 24, 2009 (boomark / email).