High stakes: United States-China trade disputes under the World Trade Organization

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Zeng
2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 352-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ka Zeng

Abstract This paper examines US-China trade disputes under the World Trade Organization (WTO) and argues that Chinese leaders are increasingly resorting to the WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism to target issues of most critical concern to domestic constituencies. The following overview of the WTO disputes initiated by China suggests that China’s WTO disputes tend to be dominated by cases involving anti-dumping duties (ADs) and countervailing duties (CVDs). The disproportionate share of such trade remedy cases in China’s WTO cases needs to be viewed in light of the fact that China has become the leading target of such cases worldwide in the past decades. The above pattern of China’s WTO initiation is explicable within the leader cost-benefit analysis, which would lead us to expect Chinese leaders to use the WTO DSM either to open foreign markets for Chinese businesses or to shield domestic firms from perceived unfair foreign trade practices. This paper further argues that the significant expansion of bilateral trade relations in the past decades has provided opportunities for Chinese leaders to identify or threaten retaliation against anti-protectionist groups in the other country in order to mobilise them against the disputed measure.


2018 ◽  
Vol 112 (3) ◽  
pp. 499-504 ◽  

Consistent with President Trump's America First trade agenda, his administration imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports in early March of 2018, triggering various responses and challenges. Countries have followed through on early objections to the tariffs through retaliatory tariffs and challenges in the World Trade Organization (WTO), and steel importers have challenged the legality of these tariffs under U.S. domestic law. At the same time, these tariffs have been revised multiple times, either to delay the implementation period for certain countries seeking exemptions or to permanently grant exemptions to countries who reached negotiated arrangements with the United States.


2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 1358-1389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Gray ◽  
Philip Potter

How do countries settle disputes in the shadow of the law? Even in the presence of legalized dispute settlement, countries still rely on diplomatic channels to resolve conflicts. But it can be difficult to assess diplomacy’s impact on dispute resolution because those channels tend to be opaque. We present both an original theory of the impact of diplomacy on dispute resolution and a novel measure of diplomacy. If countries with close or, conversely, distant relationships use legal channels for dispute resolution, diplomacy will have little impact on dispute settlement; resorting to legal recourse among friends or adversaries likely means that the dispute is intractable. However, diplomacy can increase the chances of settlement between countries with moderate levels of affinity. We test this argument using a protocol-based proxy for diplomatic interactions—gifts given at the occasion of meetings between diplomatic counterparts—that would otherwise be difficult to observe. Using the case of the United States and its disputes in the World Trade Organization, we find support for our argument. This suggests that even when countries resort to legalized methods of dispute settlement, bilateral dealmaking still plays an important role.


2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (S1) ◽  
pp. 158-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle Bagwell ◽  
Alan O. Sykes

This study addresses the disputes brought to the World Trade Organization (WTO) by the European Communities and the United States concerning certain Indian measures affecting the importation of automobiles and components in the form of “completely knocked down” (CKD) and “semi-knocked down” (SKD) kits. The measures in question originated during a time when India employed extensive import licensing requirements, ostensibly for balance of payments purposes. India’s broad licensing regime was challenged in 1997 by the European Communities and the United States, resulting in a settlement with the European Communities and a ruling in favor of the United States pursuant to which India agreed to abolish its import licensing system. Some restrictions in the automotive sector remained, however,which became the subject of this proceeding.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Yagoub Elryah ◽  

Trade policy among the G20 has emerged as one of the challenges the group faces during the last decade after the 2008 global financial crisis. This paper aims at analyzing the current trade disputes between China and the United States and the efforts the G20 has taken to settle these disputes. The fundamental questions this study attempts to answer are as follows: (1) what the US–China trade dispute means for the world trading system? (2) what the G20 can do to prevent destructive trade wars? We confront this view by critically examining a large body of evidence on the effects of trade policy on economically important outcomes. We begin with a discussion of the role of G20 in stabilizing world economy. We show the G20’s recent economic and trade development challenges and measurements of trade policy and identification of its causal effects. We present the trade balance between the United States and China. We also illustrate the efforts made by the G20 in promoting the development of China–US trade cooperation. Data were collected from different sources. Data are collected from the World Bank, the World Trade Organization (WTO) publications, and the G20 summits’ reports. The results show that the United States has a trade deficit with China, and the global growth would be notably curtailed as investment and consumer spending fall back. The G20 should focus on supporting the WTO, being upfront about the mixed effects of trade and investment, and improving G20 measures to tackle protectionism.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 1827-1840
Author(s):  
Flávio Marcelo Rodrigues Bruno

The present research has as its thematic approach, the (in) effectiveness of the decisions of the international commercial court from the recent economic policies for agriculture in the United States in relation to the determinations of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in the litigation on the granting of subsidies to cotton – Upland Cotton. It is the pretension of this research, to delimit the study of the subject in the sense of demonstrating that the United States continued to have negative impacts on the international market, even though they were defeated in the litigation against Brazil in the WTO Dispute Settlement Body. In the litigation of cotton subsidies – Upland Cotton, Brazil and the United States enter into controversy regarding the granting of this instrument of economic policy by the U.S. government to an industry in which Brazil has comparative advantages and competitive production, especially in international trade. The WTO ruling on the case has proved that the U.S. economic policy on the use of subsidies, in particular those granted to agriculture, constitute a protectionist practice that interferes negatively with international trade. An interdisciplinary legal analysis from the economic and political point of view is essential in the context of international trade relations that have a profound impact on U.S. trade policy practices.


1999 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 128-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Blandford

The signing of the Uruguay Round agreement on agriculture (URAA) in 1994 was a significant step towards the liberalization of world agricultural trade. A new round of negotiations on agriculture is scheduled to begin under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO) at the end of 1999. This paper discusses the likely agenda of those negotiations and their implications for agriculture in the northeastern United States.


2002 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth R. DeSombre ◽  
J. Samuel Barkin

The sea turtle has become an icon ofenvironmentalist opposition to the World Trade Organization. Two decisions by the WTO in 1998 against a United States law intended to force other countries to adopt more turtle-friendly rules attracted widespread attention. A third decision in 2001 which supported the US law, however, went almost entirely unnoticed. A closer examination ofthe three decisions suggests that the WTO willingly accepts the idea ofenvironmental restrictions to international trade applied unilaterally by countries. But it requires that the restrictions be fairly applied and nondiscriminatory, show signs of being effective, and be accompanied by efforts to deal with the environmental issue cooperatively. These are all requirements that environmentalists should find unobjectionable. As such, the cause of more effective international environmental management might better be served ifenvironmental activists and NGOs worked with the WTO rather than reacting automatically against it.


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