US says China's trade policies are ‘too big for WTO to tackle’
Geneva — A "reckoning" over China’s unfair trade policies is urgent and is too big for the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to handle, US ambassador Dennis Shea has told a WTO meeting. Washington has raised the stakes in its trade dispute with Beijing, threatening 10% tariffs on $200bn of Chinese goods. In response, Beijing accused the US on Wednesday of bullying and said it would complain to the WTO. Shea, however, said the Geneva-based WTO was not the place to settle the row. "Given China’s very large and growing role in international trade, and the serious harm that China’s state-led, mercantilist approach to trade and investment causes to China’s trading partners, this reckoning can no longer be put off," he said. "It is clear, moreover, that the WTO currently does not offer all of the tools necessary to remedy this situation," Shea told the two-yearly WTO review of China’s trade policies.
Under President Donald Trump, the US has demanded that the WTO’s dispute system is cha...
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