On 28 April China slapped its second set of tariffs in less than three months on imports of US chicken. The Ministry of Commerce’s fair trade office said the new tariffs were imposed in response to subsidies for chicken feed products such as maize and soya beans, which gave US chicken producers an unfair advantage in overseas markets.
The tariffs, of between 3.8% and 31.4%, come hard on the heels of an earlier move to impose anti-dumping tariffs of between 43.1% and 80.5% on US chicken products.
According to Matthew McConkey, a lawyer specializing in international trade at Mayer Brown JSM, it is not uncommon for anti-subsidy and anti-dumping duties to be imposed separately on the same product. “I don’t see this as a budding trade war,” McConkey commented.
At the end of April, China started anti-dumping investigations about imports of Caprolactam, a widely used synthetic polymer, and optical fibre from the European Union and the US. These were apparently a response to a move by the US Commerce Department the previous day to investigate whether certain forms of aluminium made in China were being unfairly subsidized and dumped. Also at the end of April, Beijing finalized an anti-dumping ruling on certain nylon products from the US, the EU, Russia and Taiwan.
