This week, more than 40 members of the World Trade Organization (WTO), including the 28 members of the European Union, voiced their concern about taking unilateral measures that could jeopardize the stability of the multilateral trading system, including the Presidential proclamation on steel imports in the United States.
This proclamation imposed an ad valorem tariff of 25% on imported steel and a 10% tariff on aluminum articles.
The US measure is inconsistent with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the WTO Agreement on Safeguards,”
said the Chinese delegation at a meeting of the Council for Trade in Goods held on March 23rd.
China, together with Russia, had requested that this issue be addressed at the meeting of ministers. The representative of the Asian country said that the US does not take into account the fact that imports of steel and aluminum do not affect their national security.
In addition, China asked the government of the United States to refrain from taking unilateral measures, and rather follow the rules of the WTO to maintain the stability of the multilateral system.
The representation of the Russian Federation, said that the new tariffs exceed the bound tariffs with which the United States government undertook the rules of the WTO. He noted that several WTO members would be exempt from the new US measure and asked for further clarification on this exemption and on how the measure could be justified under the rules of the organization.
The other members who took the floor to raise a problem with the new measure were Japan, Venezuela, Brazil, New Zealand, Turkey, Korea, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Thailand, Pakistan, Norway, Australia, India, El Salvador, Switzerland, Paraguay, Guatemala, and Kazakhstan.
In response, US representatives said that their Secretary of Commerce, in his internal investigations, had found that the quantities of imports and circumstances of global overcapacity to produce steel and aluminum threaten to undermine national security. They added that the President’s proclamations authorized an exemption for some products, if they were not produced in the United States in sufficient quantities.