WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Tuesday brought a fresh challenge to China's anti-dumping duties on U.S. broiler chicken products at the World Trade Organization in an effort to bring the long-running trade dispute to a close.
The U.S. Trade Representative's office said it is making claims that China's anti-dumping and countervailing duties violate WTO rules, partly because China failed to properly calculate U.S. poultry production costs.
China also failed to conduct transparent investigations and breached WTO rules in its finding that U.S. poultry exports have injured Chinese producers, USTR said.
The complaint is the 12th challenge brought by the Obama administration against China at the WTO and marks its second objection following China's 2010 imposition of anti-dumping duties on U.S. broiler chicken products of up to 105.4 percent and anti-subsidy duties of up to 30.3 percent.
It comes at a time of increasing U.S.-China trade tensions as China's economic slowdown has flooded markets worldwide with exports of manufactured goods.
U.S. steel and aluminum producers have filed several major anti-dumping complaints against China in recent weeks with the U.S. Commerce Department and International Trade Commission.
"Today's action holds China accountable for unfair taxes that they are imposing on American exports of broiler chicken products," U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said in a statement.
China re-examined and lowered the duties on U.S. broiler chicken products in 2014 after the WTO accepted U.S. arguments that they violated WTO rules. Current anti-dumping duties are up to 73.3 percent and anti-subsidy taxes up to 4.2 percent.
However, USTR said it believed the China's revised duties, which affect producers such as Tyson Foods Inc (N:TSN) and Pilgrim's Pride Corp (N:PPC), were still not in compliance with WTO rules.
U.S. senators from poultry-producing states cheered the new challenge.
"The United States has been the only country that has been willing to challenge China's compliance at the World Trade Organization," said U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, a Republican from Georgia.
"Trade works when the rules are followed, and it is imperative that China, the world's second-largest economy, lives up to the rules it agreed to when it joined the WTO in 2001," Isakson added.