US Defends Use of Non-Market Economy AD Calculation Methods in China's WTO Case Against EU

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) of 1994 provides the premise that World Trade Organization members recognize non-market prices or costs aren’t suitable for antidumping comparisons, and China’s accession protocol to the WTO clarifies that China’s domestic prices and costs would be considered “distorted” for AD duty purposes, the U.S. said in a brief filed to the WTO. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative filed the third-party brief concerning China’s March request for a WTO dispute panel to examine the EU’s non-market economy treatment of China in AD duty cases (see 1703130037). Non-market prices or costs aren’t suitable for AD comparisons because they aren’t appropriate to use for determining price comparability, the brief says. China has asserted that the expiration of a provision in its 2001 WTO accession agreement required that WTO members automatically grant it market economy status beginning Dec. 11, 2016 (see 1703130037). As part of their non-market AD methodologies, the U.S. and the EU use “surrogate” third-country prices and costs to set artificial prices for Chinese companies to be used in AD rate calculations for China.