By Hua Zhang
The Office of the US Trade Representative today released its 2022 Report to Congress on China's WTO Compliance on February 24. US Trade Representative Katherine Tai issued a statement at the same time and made unreasonable accusations against China.
However, the various behaviors of the US in international economics and trade make people feel that Tai's talk of "a state-led economic and trade approach that runs counter to the open, market-oriented principles endorsed by all members of the organization" is trying to shift the blame to other countries, which is a typical example of a thief crying "stop thief!"
Recently, tensions between the US and European countries have continued due to the US's insistence on pushing the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The reason why this act has triggered an international backlash is that it is an evil law that completely violates WTO rules. The bill claims to provide up to US$369 billion in subsidies to support the production and investment of electric vehicles, key minerals, clean energy and power generation facilities in the US. Among them, nine tax incentives are based on the precondition of production and sales in the US or North America, which constitutes the "import substitution subsidy" behavior clearly prohibited under the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures.
The discriminatory treatment by the US of related industries in other economies, including the EU, has caused strong dissatisfaction and opposition from other countries. At the WTO review meeting on US trade policy held in December 2022, several WTO member states severely criticized the US trade policy and strongly urged it to fulfill its obligations as a WTO member and not to go its own way of unilateralism and protectionism.
In fact, the US has a long history of abusing subsidy policies to protect its own industries while harming the interests of other countries. As early as the 1970s, the US introduced tax incentives and subsidies to promote exports and waive federal income tax for trading companies based in the US and mainly engaged in exporting US products. This approach is in violation of the anti-subsidy provisions of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).
In addition, the US has long placed its domestic laws above international rules, abused its "long-arm jurisdiction", and frequently wielded sanctions against other countries and companies. The US has a dark history of dismembering the French company Alstom and destroying the Japanese semiconductor industry. In recent years, the US has generalized the concept of "national security", weaponized trade policies, and blatantly engaged in trade bullying.
In March 2018, in accordance with Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, then US President Donald Trump imposed additional tariffs of 25 percent and 10 percent on imported steel and aluminum products on the grounds of safeguarding its national security.
On August 11, 2020, the US announced new regulations that require Hong Kong-made products to be marked with "China" instead of "Hong Kong" when they are exported to the US, in order to deprive Hong Kong of the separate customs territory status enjoyed by the "one country, two systems" policy.
At the end of last December, five dispute settlement mechanism expert group reports released by the WTO respectively ruled that the above-mentioned US practices violated WTO rules and did not meet the "national security exception" conditions and suggested that the US should correct them.
However, the US appealed all the above five rulings before the meeting. Because the US has long blocked the selection of judges on the grounds that the so-called WTO Appellate Body needs to be reformed, the body has been effectively shut down for many years. The US is clearly creating obstacles to the implementation of relevant rulings.
The US’ bad record in the WTO has long been proved by data. The WTO dispute adjudication research report shows that the US is by far the most "non-conformist", and two-thirds of the WTO's violations are caused by the US.
Violating the rules under the banner of "rules" and arbitrarily labeling and accusing other countries, the hypocrisy of the US has long been known to the world. The US should examine and reflect on its deeds if it really takes international rules seriously.
Editor's note: Originally published on china.com.cn, this article is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.
