This is a setback indeed for China, who has control over 90% of the earth’s rare minerals. One should come to expect that they find a way around this or hit back by further assaulting the US Dollar, for example.
In the closely watched case, the trade organization’s Appellate Body, its highest tribunal, ruled that China distorted international trade through dozens of export policies it maintains for bauxite, zinc, yellow phosphorus and six other industrial minerals.
The Appellate Body, reviewing an earlier decision by a W.T.O. dispute settlement panel, said the panel had gone too far in defining why more than three-dozen Chinese policies had violated free-trade rules. But the appeals group said Monday that the overall effect of China’s export restrictions was harming international trade and the policies would have to be scrapped.
“This is a major win for the United States,” said James Bacchus, a former chairman and longtime member of the Appellate Body, who now helps lead the global trade practice in the Washington office of the law firm Greenberg Traurig.
Continue reading article: W.T.O. Orders China to Stop Export Taxes on Minerals (NY Times)
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