Intensive Trade Protection Policy

Insiders pointed out that the recent intensive trade protectionism policy was due to Europe, America and Japan.

On the 26 day, US Commerce Secretary Luo Jiahui announced 14 proposals to strengthen trade remedy measures aimed at strengthening the enforcement of anti-dumping and countervailing measures and taking a more severe stand on the issue of unfair import trade, especially for China and other countries that will be controlled by the government.

The US Department of Commerce plans to implement relevant policies in the autumn after public consultation.

First, it is proposed to cancel the anti-dumping or countervailing exemption granted to a single foreign exporters under specific circumstances.

At present, after the United States government implements anti-dumping or countervailing sanctions against certain imported commodities from a certain country, if a single exporters in the country can prove that they have not committed dumping for three consecutive years or have not received illegal subsidies for 5 consecutive years, they will be exempt from the relevant trade sanctions.

Secondly, it is stipulated that after the initial anti dumping or countervailing measures have been made by relevant departments, enterprises under sanctions can only continue to export commodities to the us with cash as margin.

At present, anti dumping or countervailing cases, which are initially made by the US Department of commerce but are still under investigation, can be exported to the US by cash or bonds as margin.

Thirdly, in light of the anti-dumping cases involving non market economy countries, the calculation method of export tariffs and value-added tax in the current calculation of dumping margin is changed.

At the same time, the new measurement method is used to calculate the wage level of non market economy countries, and the use of alternative wage level to fully reflect all labor costs including welfare and taxation.

Experts believe that the new proposal will further increase the frequency of the US government's implementation of trade remedy measures such as anti-dumping and countervailing measures.

At the same time, for non market economy countries, the dumping or subsidy calculated by the new statistical method will be larger than before, leading to higher anti-dumping or countervailing duty rates.

Compared with the previous Bush administration, since the Obama administration came into power, the use of trade remedy measures has become increasingly frequent.

In 2009, the International Trade Department of the US Department of Commerce launched 34 anti-dumping and countervailing investigations, far higher than 19 in 2008.

Among them, the survey of non market economy countries accounts for about 1/3.

In addition, Japan also adjusted the conditions of anti-dumping ruling recently, ready to start waving anti-dumping stick.

According to the "Japan economic news" recently reported that the Ministry of production and trade for foreign imports of unfair products, relax the application of anti-dumping investigation conditions, so that the infringed enterprise application, the government accepted and promptly filed for investigation, take anti-dumping special tariff measures.

According to the Ministry of economic and trade, once the application is launched, the probability of adjudication of anti-dumping is 70% to 80%.

It is reported that in the increasingly fierce competition between emerging enterprises and Japanese enterprises, Japan believes that it is necessary to relax the conditions to prevent the weakening of competitiveness of Japanese enterprises.

Japan's Ministry of production and economy said the demand for the adjustment system was concentrated in the motor and textile fiber industry.

In addition, Japan is exploring the application of the United States Department of Commerce in the government to set up a special window corresponding to the application requirements of enterprises.

Experts pointed out that electromechanical products and textile fiber products are important products of China's exports, while Japan is also an important export market for China. The future trade between China and Japan is expected to be affected and worthy of vigilance.

The slowdown in global economic growth has greatly stimulated the release of protectionist sentiment.

According to the latest statistics of the Fair Trade Bureau of the Ministry of Commerce, as of July 2010, the United States has ruled that the trade remedy measures being implemented to China have amounted to 104, involving more than 80 kinds of products.

The EU has already ruled out 59 kinds of trade remedy measures to China.

In the first half of 2010, the United States launched a total of four trade relief measures, all aimed at Chinese products. In the first half of 2010, the EU launched 7 trade relief measures against China, which has been unchanged from 7 in 2009.

Insiders pointed out that the economic growth rate of Europe, the United States and Japan is too mild, and the domestic economic contradictions are prominent, coupled with domestic political pressure, which makes them eager to further pfer domestic contradictions to foreign countries.

After the Obama administration took office, he bet heavily on the strategy of manufacturing recovery and export promotion, hoping to boost the competitiveness of the local manufacturing industry and expand exports so as to boost the recovery of the economy and employment.

In the first state of the Union address published in January this year, Obama proposed the goal of doubling US exports in 5 years and creating 2 million jobs through increased exports.

However, the latest figures from the US Department of Commerce show that in the second quarter of this year, US exports increased by only 9.1%, the lowest quarterly increase since the recovery, and exports contributed only 1.08 percentage points to GDP growth, the same as the lowest in the four quarter.

Meanwhile, imports increased by 32.4% over the same period, and the GDP growth rate dropped by 4.45 percentage points.

It is against this background that the US government has put forward a package of proposals to strengthen trade remedy measures.

Whether we can make a contribution to the economic and employment issues that voters are most concerned about before the decisive battle in the mid-term elections will affect the election situation to a large extent.

Wang Jinbin, a professor at the school of economics, Renmin University of China, also pointed out in an interview with the economic reference daily that the main reason for such a policy is that the confusion and worry about the economy in the United States turned into political pressure, and finally forced the US authorities to adopt a greater intensity of trade protectionism.

In fact, this is also the further enhancement of American egoism in the field of trade, trying to replace the internationally recognized trade equity to a certain extent with the "trade equity" which the United States considers itself.

Japan is also in the grip of domestic economic difficulties. Recently, the strength of the yen has sounded the alarm. Data released by Japan's Ministry of Finance on 25 may show that exports in July increased by 23.5% to 5 trillion and 983 billion yuan, compared with the same period last year, as the country's exports to other Asian countries remained strong.

But compared with the 27.7% export growth in June, the export growth rate has been slowing for fifth consecutive months.

Analysts are even more worried that the continued high yen exchange rate will further suppress exports and make the export dependent Japanese economy once again bottomed out.

It is foreseeable that the Japanese government will do its best to maintain its trade surplus.

Experts who interviewed by the economic reference daily pointed out that in fact, the building up of trade barriers can only exacerbate the tension between countries, not only can not alleviate the negative impact of the financial crisis on economic and trade, but will deepen the global economic and trade depression.

The "tyre safeguard" case, which once caused great waves in 2009, is a typical case. The United States violates the WTO rules and insists on taking special safeguard measures for Chinese tyres, but the final result is not worth the candle.

Some analysts believe that in the mid-term elections in the United States countdown, the United States to introduce a package of proposals is a show of suspicion, to finally pass and implement it is also very difficult, if it is just a political gesture, the actual trade has little impact.

But it is worth noting that similar trends reflect that the counter cyclical trade protection policy after the financial crisis will be pformed from the specific products of specific period to the normalization of trade protectionism, and will continue for several years. The international trade environment facing China will be more complicated and difficult.

Michael Pettis, a professor of finance at Peking University and a senior fellow of the Carnegie foundation of the United States, has written for the financial times that in the next few months, the United States will be forced to make a choice between the rapid expansion of trade protection or trade deficit and the rising unemployment rate.

It is almost certain that the United States will choose the former, but if it overreacts, it may trigger a new wave of global protectionism, which will especially harm the countries with favorable trade surplus.

Many experts interviewed by the economic reference daily pointed out that intensified trade protectionism measures have become the biggest threat to China's foreign trade in the process of recovery.

Taking the textile industry as an example, the textile manufacturers' survey of 200 large textile export enterprises showed that the export orders of these enterprises decreased by 20% to 30% in the first half of this year.

At the same time, the protection of international trade is escalating.

In the first quarter of this year, the recall issued by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission covers nearly 20% of the number of textile and clothing products in China, and the number of non food quick warning systems in the EU has increased by 6.3 times.

Wang Jinbin pointed out that in response to trade protection policies, China should actively learn advanced negotiation and lobbying skills in developed countries and regions such as the United States.

China's foreign export enterprises and industries should jointly invest in foreign enterprises in China, strengthen public relations and lobbying abroad, and prevent or reduce the emergence of similar protectionist policies.

At the same time, we will not compromise on specific trade protection, which reflects the attitude of a manufacturing power and a trading power to international fair trade.

Bai Shuqiang, a professor at the school of international trade and economics of the University of foreign trade and economics, has also told the economic reference daily that maintaining an open multilateral trading system, strengthening the rules and discipline of WTO and carrying out fair and open trade are of great significance for promoting world economic and trade growth and resisting trade protectionism.

China's trade disputes with other countries and regions should be resolved through multilateral channels as far as possible, so as to promote the non politicization of trade frictions and avoid bilateral trade wars as far as possible.

At the same time, we need to strengthen international coordination, actively promote trade and investment cooperation, and resolutely oppose trade protectionism and investment protectionism.

In addition, it should be continued to actively expand new trading partners or regions, which is widely recognized in the industry.

Facts have proved that the rapid recovery of the emerging market economy has strongly promoted the growth of our exports.

The main reason for my high export success is the rapid recovery of the emerging market economy.

According to the Ministry of commerce data, from January to July, my exports to ASEAN, India and Russia increased by 43.2%, 40.1% and 70.7% respectively, all over the United States, Europe, Japan and other traditional markets.