Beijing-Washington trade ties should not be a zero-sum game: China

US announces duties on imports of Canadian paper

FE Team | Published: March 15, 2018 00:50:11

BEIJING, Mar 14 (Agencies): US-China trade relations should not be a zero-sum game, China said on Wednesday, as US President Donald Trump seeks to impose tariffs on up to $60 billion of Chinese imports.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a daily news briefing that China would take firm measures to safeguard its legitimate trade rights.
Trump is seeking to impose tariffs on up to $60 billion of Chinese imports and will target the technology and telecommunications sectors, two people who had discussed the issue with the Trump administration said on Tuesday.
The US administration announced anti-dumping duties Tuesday on imports of one kind of paper from Canada, further straining tense trade relations.
At issue is what is called uncoated groundwood paper, used in newsprint. US imports of it from Canada totaled $1.27 billion in 2016, the Commerce Department said.
The Americans argue that the Canadian paper has been sold in the country at less than its fair value.
The duties are preliminary pending more investigation and a final decision in August.
For now, US importers of this product will have to pay cash deposits equivalent to 22.16 per cent of the price of what they bring in from Canada.
The decision follows a complaint filed by a US firm, North Pacific Paper Company.
The United States is Canada's biggest trading partner and vice versa but relations have grown tense since Donald Trump came to power in January of last year.
He has forced a renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, arguing that it was a bad deal for the US.
Last week Trump gave Canada and Mexico a temporary exemption from new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. But he said the tariffs would in fact be imposed if the NAFTA talks did not yield a deal that satisfied him.
"Enforcement of US trade law is a prime focus of the Trump administration," Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement.
"From January 20, 2017, through March 13, 2018, the Commerce Department has initiated 102 antidumping and countervailing duty investigations - a 96 per cent increase from the same period in 2016-2017," he added.
This kind of paper was already hit by preliminary US countervailing duties announced in January.
Canada's government said it was "disappointed" by the new US measure.
"Any duties will have a direct and negative impact on US newspapers, especially those in small cities and towns, and result in job losses in the American printing sector," the foreign minister and minister of natural resources said in a statement.
The US announcement came as Canada's foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, was in Washington to discuss bilateral trade relations.
Meanwhile, US business sentiment has soared after tax cuts, but the gains could be undone by restrictive trade policy in the Trump era, the Business Roundtable said Tuesday.
Business Roundtable president Joshua Bolten warned that corporate confidence faces a "possible major headwind" from shifting trade policies and that a US exit from NAFTA would be a "disaster" for US companies.
The lobbying group, which represents large US companies, released a quarterly business survey that showed surging expectations for hiring and capital investment after President Donald Trump signed massive US tax cuts into law in December.
But the survey of chief executives, which came in at the highest-ever level in the index's 15-year history, was conducted in February prior to Trump's controversial decision to impose tariffs on imported steel and aluminum.
Questions about trade dominated a brief conference call with reporters.
"There are issues (around trade)," said JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon, who serves as chairman of the roundtable.
"But the right way to go about that is to really think it through strategically with the allies and make sure we're doing the right thing and not doing these one-off things which tend to backfire."
Bolten said the group was working to "scale back" the steel and aluminum tariffs and described other levies suggested by Trump administration officials in response to foreign tariffs on US goods as bad for business.
"Predictability and consistency is absolutely crucial for all of our CEOs' planning," Bolten said.
Bolten also expressed worry over the state of talks on the North America Free Trade Agreement, which Trump has sometimes said the US might quit.
"We are strongly opposed to any direction in the negotiations that might result in US withdrawal from NAFTA, which would be a disaster not so much for the Mexicans and the Canadians, but for US businesses and exporters," he said.