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Sidney Leng

China has announced new tariffs on rubber imported from the United States, European Union and Singapore after an investigation found it was being sold at unfairly low prices.
While the move was not directly targeted at Washington, it came just a day after a US inquiry accused China of selling heavily subsidised aluminium sheet on the American market.
China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on Thursday that foreign suppliers had been “dumping” chlorobutyl rubber, which is used to make tyres, on China at the expense of local companies.
In an initial ruling, importers representing companies like ExxonMobil and Arlanxeo were told to pay import duty deposits ranging from 26 per cent to 66.5 per cent to China customs.
Aluminium sheet imports from China are being subsidised, US finds
The statement said the anti-dumping investigation was initiated in August, but the ruling came as China and the US remain locked in a tit-for-tat trade fight, and just two days after Beijing imposed preliminary anti-dumping tariffs of 179 per cent on US sorghum.

The US Commerce Department said on Tuesday that its investigations found that Chinese aluminium sheet sold in the US had been subsidised by between 31.2 and 113.3 per cent. It said also that it was starting a new inquiry to determine if certain types of steel wheels imported from China were being “dumped” in the US.
Bitter harvest: US sorghum farmers fear China’s tariffs could cost them dearly
While the investigations are not directly related, the recent exchange of trade moves by the world’s two largest economies may undermine the limited goodwill they share and make it harder for them to avoid a full-blown trade war further down the road.




Gao Feng, China’s commerce ministry spokesperson, told a news conference that Beijing and Washington had agreed to discuss their trade dispute, but that no talks had yet been held.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment said on Thursday that as part of its efforts to end the import of “foreign trash”, China would ban incoming shipments of a further 16 waste plastics and industrial scrap at the end of this year, and 16 more at the end of 2019.

The new additions, which would extend the restricted items list to 157, include scrap from electrical appliances and steel slag, the ministry said.


According to figures from the environmental advocacy group Greenpeace, at its peak in 2012 China imported more than 9 million tonnes of plastic waste from around the world, much of which was used as raw materials for manufacturing. In recent years, however, the country has sought to curb such imports in the interests of environmental protection.
Why a US-China trade war is self-defeating in a connected world
In July, Beijing issued a ban, effective from the start of 2018, on 24 types of waste including mining slag, waste textiles, household waste plastics and unsorted waste paper. In the first quarter of this year, waste imports fell by 54 per cent, according to figures from the General Administration of Customs.
According to the US Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, the US exported US$5.6 billion worth of scrap to China in 2016. Similarly, according to Greenpeace, since 2012, the UK has shipped more than 2.7 million tonnes of plastic scrap, or two thirds of its total waste plastic exports, to the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong.
Xu Jianwei, a senior economist from the French bank Natixis, said the timing of the announcement by the environment ministry might not have been a coincidence.
“China has been planning to increase its ban on solid waste imports for a long time,” he said. “It’s a bit far-fetched to say the current US-China trade tension is what sparked the latest extension, but it could have speeded up the process.”


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US-China trade war

Beijing accuses US, EU of dumping rubber on China as trade dispute shows no signs of tiring

China has announced new tariffs on rubber imported from the US, EU and Singapore after an investigation found it was being sold at unfairly low prices. Photo: Reuters

This March 20, 2018 photo shows Exxon Mobil Corp.'s Olefins Plant in Baytown, Texas. Two days after Harvey hit, some 457 million gallons of stormwater mixed with untreated wastewater, including oil and grease, surged into an adjacent creek from the Exxon plant. (Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle via AP)

(FILES) This file picture taken on August 9, 2014 shows workers dismantling electronic waste at a workshop at Guiyu Township in Shantou City, south China's Guangdong. For years China was the world's top destination for recyclable trash, but a ban on certain imports has left nations scrambling to find new dumping grounds for growing piles of garbage. The decision was announced in July and came into force on January 1, 2018 giving companies from Europe to the United States barely six months to look for other options, and forcing some to store trash in parking lots. / AFP PHOTO / JOHANNES EISELE / - China OUT / TO GO WITH AFP STORY "CHINA-WASTE-RECYCLING" FOCUS BY BECKY DAVIS AND LILLIAN DING, WITH AFP BUREAUX IN EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES

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Importers hit with duty deposits of up to 66 per cent, a day after US takes similar punitive action against Chinese aluminium


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