Posted 9/15/2020. A World Trade Organization dispute settlement panel on Tuesday ruled U.S. Section 301 tariffs on Chinese goods violate WTO rules, rejecting U.S. claims that the two sides had reached a mutual resolution to the case and that the duties were needed to protect public morals. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, however, said the ruling justified the Trump administration's actions by proving the WTO was unable to address China's illicit trade practices. "This panel report confirms what the Trump Administration has been saying for four years: The WTO is completely inadequate to stop China's harmful technology practices," Lighthizer said in a statement. "Although the panel did not dispute the extensive evidence submitted by the United States of intellectual property theft by China, its decision shows that the WTO provides no remedy for issue do not explain the relationship between the chosen measures - additional duties applied to a range of specified products - and the public morals objective pursued by the United States, the report said. "The United States has also not provided any other evidence in support of its assertion that the products on which it imposed additional duties benefitted from practices of China that the United States considered to be contrary to its public morals, nor evidence that would more generally demonstrate how the products it selected for additional duties treatment contributed to its public morals objective."
展开▼
