NEWS DESK
GENEVA: China accused the United States on Wednesday of using subsidies to support national industries and refusing to accept the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
In a speech, China’s ambassador to the World Trade Organization, Li Chenggang said that he was disappointed in the US trading record, saying it had not lived up to President Joe Biden’s preliminary announcement to lead the world by the power of our example.
“The US puts America First by implementing its domestic laws and violating international rules and the laws of other countries, disrespecting the WTO rules and concerns of other member states,” he informed a closed-door US trade policy review at WTO.
“The US is clearly a destroyer to the multilateral trading system,” he added.
WTO global trading system
The US ambassador to the WTO, Maria Pagán, defended US policies, saying it was one of the world’s most open and competitive economies with some of the least tariffs. “For several decades, the United States has led by maintaining a basically open economy,” Maria Pagan said.
The US trade policy review takes place every few years and allows WTO members to give feedback on Washington’s track record.
China s remarks came days after it filed a WTO trade complaint against US curbs on chip exports.
The United States has previously said China s industrial policies were skewed against imported goods and services. It has also called on the world’s second-largest economy to carry out further liberalization and open its vast markets.
The WTO s global trading system for settling global trade disputes has been only partially functional since December 2019, when Washington s repeated blockage of judge appointments under former President Donald Trump paralyzed its apex court. That means that any member, including the US, can and has appealed decisions made by a lower court into legal limbo.
Ambassador Li called the US a “capricious rule-breaker” for not implementing rulings.
