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USTR critical of China in new report to Congress
The U.S. Trade Representative says China fails to meet the obligations it agreed to when joining the World Trade Organization twenty years ago. Katherine Tai says China has not moved to embrace the market-oriented principles on which the WTO and its rules are based, and the country has instead retained and expanded its state-led, non-market approach to the economy and trade.
A report from the USTR to Congress Wednesday says the Phase One Trade Agreement reflected changes in intellectual property protection and financial services that China had already been planning, and the attention paid to the agriculture sector and the purchase of U.S. goods was to appease the priorities of the Trump Administration. The USTR report also says China has not implemented significant commitments in agricultural biotechnology and the required risk assessment that China is to conduct relating to the use of ractopamine in cattle and swine. The USTR says China has fallen far short of implementing its commitments to purchase U.S. goods and services in 2020 and 2021.
The USTR report also details problems with the WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism, saying it is not effective in addressing China’s state-led, non-market approach to the economy and trade that systematically disadvantages its trading partners.
