The United States forced the creation of a WTO dispute panel to hear its complaint that China unfairly blocks imports of U.S. corn, wheat and rice, reported Reuters. When it filed the complaint last Dec. 15, the Obama administration said U.S. farmers lost as much as $3.5 billion in sales because China, the largest customer for U.S. ag exports, used so-called tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) to favor domestic producers.
China blocked the initial U.S. request for a dispute panel on Aug 31. Under WTO rules, a dispute panel is automatically established if a country makes a second request. The Chinese delegation said the United States challenged “legitimate measures with regard to vital agricultural staples.” The United States says imported rice, wheat and corn are cheaper than the prices that China allows in its internal market because of “opaque and unpredictable management of TRQs.”
The complaint about TRQs followed by three months a U.S. complaint to WTO of excessive Chinese subsidies for wheat, corn and rice. U.S. grain groups complain frequently that countries such as China, India and Brazil violate world trade rules on agriculture at the same time they press for subsidy cuts by industrialized nations.