China has filed a case with the World Trade Organization against the US, to protest the Trump administration's plan to put new tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports. It says the tariffs are illegal attempts at protectionism.
China's Ministry of Commerce announced it is pursuing legal remedy against the US in a brief statement on its website, the latest in an escalating trade conflict between the world's two largest economies.
The WTO complaint comes less than a week after the Trump administration published a preliminary list of more than 6,000 Chinese products that it wants to hit with an additional 10 percent duty. The list targets products worth a total of $200 billion, ranging from an expansive range of seafood and vegetables to metals and plywood.
The latest US tariffs were announced days after China retaliated for an earlier round of US import taxes of up to 25 percent on items worth about $50 billion.
The deteriorating trade conditions with China have rattled a variety of economic sectors, affecting prices of raw materials such as paper. And separate US tariffs on aluminum and steel, which hit Canada, Mexico and the European Union, have also led to higher prices on some products, as NPR reported earlier this month.
According to kuow.org, last year, the United States' total trade in goods with China topped $635 billion, according to the US Census Bureau. In that year, the US says its goods trade deficit with China was $375.2 billion.
Conversely, the US has launched its own WTO disputes against tariffs from China, the EU and Canada. Washington has initiated a series of disputes at the World Trade Organization over duties on US exports by China, the European Union, Mexico, Canada and Turkey in response to the earlier US-imposed steel and aluminum tariffs.
"The United States today launched separate disputes at the World Trade Organization against China, the European Union, Canada, Mexico and Turkey, challenging the tariffs each WTO member imposed in response to President Trump's actions on trade in aluminum and steel to protect the United States' national security interests," US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said in a press release on Monday.
