China has failed to embrace the World Trade Organization-based (WTO) market-oriented principles despite representations it made when it joined 20 years ago, the US said Wednesday.
“China has instead retained and expanded its state-led, non-market approach to the economy and trade,” US Trade Representative Ambassador Katherine Tai said in a statement.
“It is clear that in pursuing that approach, China’s policies and practices challenge the premise of the WTO’s rules and cause serious harm to workers and businesses around the world, particularly in industries targeted by China’s industrial plans,” she added.
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Tai said the administration of US President Joe Biden is pursuing a multi-faceted approach to address the harm caused by China’s trade and economic policies through bilateral engagement with China and the use of trade tools to protect American workers and businesses.
The statement said the administration’s strategy also includes enhanced engagement with allies and partners to build broad support for solutions to the many unique problems posed by China and defending shared interests.
Years of the WTO compliance reports underscore one common theme — there is no silver bullet for putting the US-China trade relationship on a better track and every approach tried thus far has failed. Hope USTR succeeds in finding new tools that they seek https://t.co/q0JJJuhqRU
— Wendy Cutler (@wendyscutler) February 16, 2022
The world’s two largest economies have engaged in a trade war since 2018, and reached a trade deal in early 2020 to ease tensions. But China came up more than one-third short of its purchase commitments for goods in the pact, which some analysts criticized as unrealistic from the start, as the global pandemic upended supply chains. The U.S. has pledged to hold the nation accountable, without specifying the next steps that it will take.
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China had pledged to buy the extra $200 billion in U.S. agriculture, Tai has said repeatedly that the Biden administration’s concerns go beyond the purchase commitments and include Beijing’s state-centered industrial policy.
Anadolu with additional input by GVS News Desk