WTO backs U.S. in case against China duties on steel

By Tom Miles and Doug Palmer

GENEVA/WASHINGTON -- A World Trade Organization panel on Friday handed the United States a victory in a case against Chinese imports duties on a specialty steel product primarily made in two presidential battleground states, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

"With respect to each of the 11 programmes at issue, the panel concluded that China had acted inconsistently" with WTO rules governing the use of countervailing duties, which are used to counteract unfair subsidies, the panel said in its ruling.

The case involved Chinese duties on potentially hundreds of millions of dollars of "grain-oriented flat-rolled electrical steel", a specialty steel product made by AK Steel Corp of Ohio and ATI Allegheny Ludlum of Pennsylvania.

"Today's victory is important not only for steelworkers in Pennsylvania and Ohio, but also for American farmers and workers in other sectors that export to China," U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in a statement.

"The panel upheld our claims that China's duties on U.S. exports of steel products failed to comply with many WTO rules. This decision sends another clear signal to China that it must do more to fulfill its WTO commitments, and that it will be held accountable to play by WTO rules," he said.

Kirk visited ATI's facility in Washington, Pennsylvania in July 2010, a few months before the government brought the case.

The victory allows U.S. President Barack Obama to argue his trade policies on China are yielding results as he battles for votes against Republican Mitt Romney in the important states of Ohio and Pennsylvania before the November presidential election.

The case was unusual in that it involved China complaining about steel being sold at unfairly cheap prices on its market, something that China, which produces almost half the world's steel, is often accused of doing in the United States.

Cheap Chinese steel imports have attracted punitive duties in the United States and China made those U.S. duties the subject of a separate trade complaint at the WTO last month.Compra Zapatillas de running para hombre