San Francisco Frontiers - China condemns US 'tariff shocks' at WTO

After returning to office on January 20, Trump hit China, the world's second-biggest economy, with an additional 10 percent levy on products entering the United States.

Trump signed executive orders last week imposing new 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminium, due to come into effect on March 12.

And he said Tuesday that US tariffs on imported cars would be around 25 percent, providing new information on duties he is expected to unveil around April 2.

"The world faces a series of tariff shocks," said Li Chenggang, China's ambassador to the WTO, at the first meeting of the year of the global trade body's decision-making General Council.

"The US has imposed or threatened tariffs on its trading partners, including China, unilaterally and arbitrarily, blatantly violating WTO rules. China firmly opposes such measures.

"These tariff shocks heighten economic uncertainty, disrupt global trade, and risk domestic inflation, market distortion, or even global recession."

Li went on to say that US unilateralism threatened to upend the rules-based multilateral trading system.

- 'Wrongful' tariffs -

Imposing punitive tariffs on countries with high trade surpluses with the United States has been at the heart of Trump's economic policy.

He paused 25 percent levies against Canada and Mexico for a month after both countries vowed to step up measures to counter flows of the drug fentanyl and the crossing of undocumented migrants into the United States.

But Trump went ahead with tariffs on China, which in return imposed retaliatory tariffs targeting US coal and liquified natural gas.

Li said: "We cannot lose sight of the root cause of today's trade turbulence and threats to all members: it is US arbitrary tariffs and unilateral measures."

He urged Washington to withdraw the tariffs and "engage in multilateral dialogues based on equity, mutual benefit, and mutual respect".

A Geneva-based trade official said Washington voiced concerns that China was operating a non-market economic system and habitually breached WTO rules.

"The US highlighted the issues stemming from China's lack of transparency and its disregard for WTO oversight," the official said.

"The US also pointed out that the WTO's current inability to address China's market-distorting policies, such as unfair subsidies, significantly diminishes the organisation's effectiveness."

- 'Cool heads' call -

WTO director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala urged the WTO's 166 members to keep "cool heads", and keep talking to one another.

"The world has changed. We cannot come here to continue doing the same things we've been doing," she said.

The former Nigerian finance minister urged countries to use the new trade landscape as an "inflection point" to press on with long-sought reforms to the WTO.

The WTO is upgrading its tariff analysis database and will launch the new version on March 4.

The General Council meeting continues on Wednesday.

Z.Sanchez--SFF