China questions US duties on Chinese truck, bus tires

Amid concerns of trade war between the world's top two economies under Donald Trump's presidency, China today questioned the US decision to levy heavy duties truck and bus tires from China and threatened to take retaliatory measures to defend rights of Chinese firms.
The US Commerce Department has said it will slap anti- dumping duties of up to 22.57 per cent and countervailing duties of up to 65.46 per cent on certain truck and bus tires imported from China.
In response to the US decision, China's Ministry of Commerce official Wang Hejun criticised the US investigation procedures, which he said were defective and ignored facts.

Wang said the US move had harmed the interests of China's tire industry, and urged the US to abide by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules and correct its mistakes.
US imports of truck and bus tires from China were worth about USD 1.5 billion in 2015, which fell to more than USD one billion in the first 11 months last year, affected by the investigation, state-run Xinhua news agency said.
The new bout of tiff over tariffs came as China yesterday appealed to US to desist from acting on Trump's poll pledges of hiking tariffs against Chinese goods and declaring Beijing as currency manipulator, saying both counties will suffer from such moves.

"On the tariff matter whether China is worried? We have made our position very clear in the past few days. Economic ties are win-win in nature. Trade war have no winners and harms the interests of both sides," Chinese Foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told media responding to questions.

Trump this week pulled US out of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which his predecessor Barak Obama vigorously pursued leaving China out of it.
The US exports around USD 100 billion worth of goods to China whereas Beijing exports goods worth over USD 400 billion to the US.
Chinese official media has been projecting that Trump may resort to trade and currency wars against China to prop up American economy.

Hua denied that China is manipulating currency.
"In principle, I say that China has no intention to raise trade competitiveness thorough RMB depreciation even as to launch a currency war. We will firmly push forward market based reform of exchange rate, maintain basic stability of RMB exchange at equilibrium level," she said.
RMB or yuan, as Chinese currency is known, has depreciated by eight per cent in recent months.
Speculation is rife that it may depreciate by another five per cent as Chinese exports continue to slowdown.
"We are ready to enhance communication and coordination with the US to uphold normal bilateral trading environment," she said, quoting MOFCOM report stating that trade and investment between the two countries were on the rise and China is one of the most open economy in the world.