The United States, which won a WTO challenge against China over tariffs on U.S. chicken products in 2013, is going back to the trade body to force China to remove antidumping and countervailing duties. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said the challenge “is the twelfth that this administration has taken against China at the WTO – and to date we have won every case that has been decided.”
China imposed the duties in 2010 and said U.S. chicken was being dumped in China, to the detriment of its farmers. The WTO ruled against China in 2013. When a July 2014 deadline for compliance arrived, China said a new investigation justified a new round of duties, which are lower than the original rates of up to 105 percent on some U.S. poultry processors.
Nearly 18 percent of U.S. chicken production is exported from a U.S. industry that is the second-largest chicken producer in the world. China is one of the main destinations for exports such as chicken feet and wingtips, said the National Chicken Council, a trade group. “China is misusing antidumping rules,” said the American Farm Bureau Federation. “Trade enforcement is an essential part of an effective trade policy.”