Even as the U.S. and the European Union work privately to resolve their differences over subsidies to Airbus and Boeing, a U.S. representative at the World Trade Organization complained that the EU provided no status update on coming into compliance over Airbus subsidies. The EU said that the measures it took in August 2020 (see 2008280051) were more than enough to comply with a WTO ruling, according to a Geneva trade official.

South Africa recently announced plans to review its tariff structure for poultry as part of a broader plan to reduce imports and support its local poultry industry, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported April 22. In its review, South Africa will consider introducing “specific” rather than ad valorem duties, simplifying its tariff structure by reducing the number of tariff lines and imposing specific anti-dumping measures. Although the South African government and industry have “rallied” behind the plan, not all are convinced the strategy will solve the “structural” issues within the country’s poultry sector, USDA said. Despite recent measures to raise import duties on poultry products and impose antidumping duties on several trading partners, USDA said South African poultry producers “haven’t been able to produce enough poultry that will be sufficient to supplement imports and meet all the domestic demand.”

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai heard many bipartisan complaints about the pain of both Section 301 tariffs and Europe's retaliatory tariffs in response to steel tariffs, but stood her ground on both during a hearing in front of a Senate Appropriations subcommittee responsible for funding the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

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Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and Canada recently made antidumping and countervailing duty decisions on certain products from mainland China, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council reported April 9. The duty decisions impact a range of imported Chinese goods, including blenders, machinery parts, solar modules, iron and steel products, sunglasses and more.

A Japanese trade official said Japan's subsidies to diversify and reshore supply chains have already spurred plans for domestic factories for semiconductors, battery components for electric vehicles, aircraft engine parts, household disinfectants, medicines, protective gowns and chemicals.

The European Commission imposed antidumping duties on aluminum extrusions from China with duty margins ranging from 21.2% to 32.1%, the commission announced in a March 30 news release. The antidumping investigation began Feb. 14, 2020, following a complaint filed by the association European Aluminium, which represented more than 25% of the European Union's total aluminum extrusion production capacity.

China's Ministry of Commerce is imposing import duties on Australian wines following an antidumping and countervailing duty investigation, it said in a March 26 news release, according to an unofficial translation. Beginning March 28, the antidumping duty on Australian wines in containers of two liters or less will be 116.2%-218.4% for each company subject to the investigation. The agency determined the dumping margin for the wines to be 116.2%-218.4% and the subsidy margin provided by the Australian government to be 6.3%-6.4%. The new antidumping duty rate is significantly higher than the preliminary countervailing duty rate China set in December (see 2012100016). The agency decided not to impose countervailing duties for the subsidies “in order to avoid double taxation,” the release said.

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai opened her first full week on the job with a series of video calls with major allies and trading partners -- Canada, the United Kingdom, the European Union -- and diplomatic summaries of the calls from both sides mostly echoed each other, suggesting there was a good deal of agreement.

Australia plans to ask the World Trade Organization to establish a dispute settlement panel to rule on what it says are illegal Chinese antidumping and countervailing duties on Australian barley (see 2005180016). Australia held WTO consultations with China in late January but those talks “did not resolve our concerns,” Australia’s Trade Minister Dan Tehan said March 15. Tehan said the duties have unfairly affected barley exporters and are “not consistent with China's WTO obligations.”