China launches anti-dumping probe into US sorghum imports
BEIJING: China has launched an anti-dumping investigation into sorghum imports from the United States, spurring worries of a brewing tit-for-tat trade war between the world’s top two economies.
The commerce ministry announced the self-initiated probe on Sunday, just weeks after President Donald Trump’s administration slapped its latest batch of tariffs on Chinese goods.
The ministry did not announce any new tariffs on the grain, though, and the results of the dumping investigation are not expected until February next year.
China is the largest buyer of US crops like sorghum and soyabeans, and tariffs on their import would hurt American farmers.
The US shipped 4.8 million tonnes of sorghum valued at US$1 billion (RM389 billion) to China last year, according to China’s Customs data. That was a sliver of the US$14 billion in US soyabean imports.
Some analysts have predicted China may aim new tariffs at the Republican-leaning states that make up Trump’s base. Kansas went heavily for Trump in 2016 and was the largest sorghum producer in the US last year.
“The US government is providing sorghum subsidies,” said Wang Hejun, director of the trade remedy and investigation bureau at the Ministry of Commerce.
“Since 2013, the sorghum exports to China have substantially increased and the price has fallen, harming China’s sorghum industry,” said Wang.
The ministry said the US had exported more than 50 per cent of its sorghum crop since 2013.
China’s move to self-initiate a dumping investigation rather than by request from industry comes after the Trump administration launched its own selfinitiated trade case against Chinese aluminium sheet imports last year. AFP