GENEVA — The World Trade Organization has ruled that Washington acted within its rights when it raised import taxes on Chinese tires to reduce their flow into the United States.
The trade panel dismissed China’s complaint that the higher tariffs breached WTO rules.
The office of the U.S. Trade Representative in Washington called the ruling released Monday “a major victory for the United States and particularly for American workers and businesses.”
The dispute focused on a three-year tariff approved in September 2009 by President Barack Obama. U.S. imports of low-grade Chinese tires rose threefold to about 46 million tires between 2004 and 2008.
China can appeal the panel’s verdict within 60 days to an appellate hearing panel of the WTO, the Geneva-based organization that oversees the rules of global trade.
Obama had imposed a tariff on imported tires from China. The tariffs started at 35 percent in the first year, which began in September 2009. They then fell to 30 percent in the second year and will drop to 25 percent in the third year. The United Steelworkers Union pushed for the penalty tariffs, saying a surge of tire imports from China had cost 5,000 U.S. tire workers their jobs since 2004. The union complained after China’s market share of tires sold in the U.S. nearly quadrupled from 2004 to 2008.
The White House and members of Congress are under political pressure to slow Chinese imports into the United States.
