According to the Financial Times:
The US will impose tough new duties on Chinese steel piping imports, raising tensions with its biggest trading partner and emerging geopolitical rival.
With Chinese piping imports worth $2.8bn in 2008, the case is the biggest against China brought before the International Trade Commission, a US trade body, but follows other US actions to counter a flood of goods that Washington claims China is exporting at below market prices.
Friction between the US and China has been building this year after disputes over tariffs on tyres, cars and chickens. China denounced a move by the US earlier this year to tax imports of Chinese car and light truck tyres as a “serious act of trade protectionism”.
Something is seriously wrong when China denounces protectionism and the U.S. defends it.
Bevan Sabo
Ariel Goldring
Guest Blogger
