According to the official website of the Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China, on April 17, U.S. time, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) announced the launch of a 301 investigation against China’s maritime, logistics and shipbuilding industries. China strongly opposes and is firmly against this move.
The U.S. application is filled with a large number of false accusations, misinterpreting normal trade and investment activities as damaging to U.S. domestic security and corporate interests and blaming China for its own industrial problems, which lacks factual basis and runs counter to economic common sense. A number of U.S. studies have shown that the U.S. shipbuilding industry lost its competitive advantage many years ago because of overprotection.
The U.S. provides hundreds of billions of dollars in discriminatory subsidies to its own industries, but accuses China of adopting so-called “non-market practices”. In fact, the development of Chinese industries is the result of technological innovation and active participation in market competition by enterprises. And the accusations of the U.S. are simply untenable.
The launching of the 301 investigation against China and the imposition of tariffs on China by the previous U.S. administration had already been judged by the WTO to be in violation of the WTO rules, and had been opposed by a large number of WTO members. The U.S. is making a mistake by launching a new 301 investigation for its domestic political needs.
We urge the U.S. to respect the facts and multilateral rules, immediately stop its wrongful practices and return to the rules-based multilateral trading system. China will closely follow the progress of the 301 investigation and will take all necessary measures to resolutely defend its rights and interests.
It is understood that the United States Steelworkers (USW) and other five major trade union organizations in the local time on March 12, filed a petition, formally requesting that the Biden administration to open a trade investigation into China’s “unreasonable and discriminatory” practices in the maritime, logistics and shipbuilding industries. The USTR is required to decide whether to initiate an investigation within 45 days.
The petition urges the Biden Administration to impose port fees on Chinese-built ships and use the fees collected to create a fund to revitalize the U.S. shipbuilding industry. Also, the petition recommends that the Biden Administration take all actions within the scope of the President’s authority to increase the demand for U.S.-built ships by requiring that U.S. exports of LNG, fuel oil, etc., be transported by U.S.-built liquid cargo ships.