r/stocks • u/callsonreddit • 1d ago
China files complaint with WTO over new US tariffs
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-files-complaint-wto-over-124325157.html
GENEVA (Reuters) - China said it had opened a formal complaint against the new U.S. tariffs with the World Trade Organization on Friday, saying the measures violate WTO rules and requesting consultations.
Earlier, China announced retaliatory additional tariffs of 34% on U.S. goods, the most serious escalation in a trade war with President Donald Trump that has fed fears of a recession and touched off a global stock market rout.
"China has filed the WTO complaint with respect to the United States' measures," the Permanent Mission of China to the World Trade Organization said in a statement.
The new tariffs blatantly violate WTO rules, it added.
In the standoff between the world's top two economies, Beijing also announced controls on exports of some rare earths which it dominates, potentially cutting the U.S. off from critical minerals vital to everything from smartphones to electric car batteries and defence.
Trump on Wednesday announced China would be hit with a 34% tariff, on top of the 20% he previously imposed earlier this year, bringing the total new levies to 54% and close to the 60% figure he had threatened while on the campaign trail.
Chinese exporters, like those from other economies around the world, will face a 10% baseline tariff, as part of the new 34% levy, on almost all goods shipped to the world's largest consumer economy from Saturday before the remaining, higher "reciprocal tariffs" take effect from April 9.
China on Thursday urged the United States to immediately cancel its latest tariffs.
The WTO Secretariat confirmed to Reuters on Friday that it had received the request for consultations from China.
Bilateral consultations are the first stage of formal dispute settlement. If no solution is found within 60 days, China could request adjudication by the Geneva-based organisation's Dispute Settlement Body.
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u/-Indictment- 1d ago edited 1d ago
Trump will claim the WTO is a fraudulent organization built to defraud America. Its sole purpose is to harm our country. He will withdrawal from the organization. He will then go golfing and post on Truth Social “so many beautiful men lost their lives for this beautiful country. And the WTO organization wants to tell us we need to trade fairly with the terrible people of China. Not Today!!! Not Tomorrow!!! America is a Great Country. Perhaps the Greatest since George Washington. Even Abraham Lincoln who loved the slaves. Like me, I love the black people. Rappers. Little Wayne. Aunt Jemima. Who the woke stole from us. In All of History. MAGA!”
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u/aKamikazePilot 1d ago
Honestly…would not be surprised if that was verbatim Truth Social post from him (which is incredibly sad how far we’ve come)
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u/DrakenViator 1d ago
Honestly…would not be surprised if that was verbatim Truth Social post from him (which is incredibly sad how far we’ve come)
Not enough CAPITAL LETTERS!
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u/starship_narrator 1d ago
Peter Navarro outlined the conservative grievances with the WTO in Project 2025. They're especially pissed at China's MFN status. So, we're well on the way to undermining the WTO with all this dumb bullshit.
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u/gizamo 1d ago
I'm as liberal and anti-Trump as it gets, but I absolutely believe the WTO has badly failed the world specifically regarding China. Their blatant, rampant theft of IP and trade secrets, and their constant currency and market manipulations, have undermined global economies as intentionally as OPEC. At the very least, China needs to be reclassified as a developed country and forced to play by the same rules.
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u/Ray192 1d ago
At the very least, China needs to be reclassified as a developed country and forced to play by the same rules.
But it's clearly not a developed country. China's per capita GDP is less than Mexico's.
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u/gizamo 1d ago
WTO is a trade org that was established to govern trade, which includes establishing fair, reasonable rules. China trades like developed nations, but gets all the benefits of developing nations -- and uses that imbalance to protect itself as it blatantly abused the rules.
It can't keep having it both ways, else the other nations will abandon it. Imo, they should have already. The US, UK, and most EU countries are getting absolutely screwed by China abusing the system.
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u/Ray192 1d ago edited 1d ago
But it's clearly a developing country. By every measure you can come up with, it's a country filled with enormous poverty and hardship.
And I have no idea what "trades like developed nations" means. What exactly does a "developed nation trade" looks like? Australia exports mostly energy and raw materials so it trades more like Nigeria / Indonesia, Switzerland exports mostly chemicals and services so it trades nothing like Australia, South Korea trades mostly electronics and machinery so it trades a lot more like Vietnam than either Australia or Switzerland.
Exactly what specific criterion are you gonna come up with to define "trade like a developed country" that would include Australia, Switzerland AND South Korea but excludes Nigeria, Indonesia and Vietnam? I'm genuinely curious because I can't think of anything. Countries can become rich/developed in numerous ways, if you think China "trades like a developed country" simply because it can manufacture advanced technology then that means half of actually developed countries don't trade like one (according to your definition of it)!
Based on what I'm seeing you far, YOU'RE the one who wants to have it both ways, because you insist on categorizing a country that clearly is NOT developed, as developed, for the sole reason that you don't think they should get the benefits that all other developing countries get (and China clearly is a developing country by every standard we can come up with), but you seem to be fine with other developing countries getting the same benefits even though those countries are on average richer than China (like Mexico). YOU are the one who wants everyone else to insist on a blatant lie just to achieve your ends (that China is a developed country, it's clearly not).
If you want the WTO to get rid all the special benefits that developing countries get, fine, let's have that discussion. But to insist that a poverty-ridden country like China get classified as developed... honestly man, have some respect for the truth, will you?
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u/gizamo 1d ago
It's literally the largest economy in the world. Your BS is like claiming the US is a developing country if it had 10 more Alabamas. It's utter nonsense. It still has a California, Texas,...hell, it has a dozen cities that are the equivalent of average US states. Pretending that it is not an economic powerhouse and one of the top 5 economies in the world is complete disingenuous bullshit.
Based on what I've seen so far, YOU are either ignorant of China's actual economy and how it operates, or you are being intentionally deceitful.
Developing countries should have special treatment when they aren't also global powers that have specifically and directly abused that stays as China obviously has.
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u/honeymustard_dog 1d ago
Remindme! 1 month
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u/caterpillarprudent91 1d ago
Us already blocked the WTO judges since 2016. This is just a formality to show WTO is useless with US in it.
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u/Lortekonto 20h ago
Yes, I was like. Did people forget that Trump already crippled WTO in his first term.
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u/II-TANFi3LD-II 1d ago
Wish we had an LLM trained on Trump and prompted to always make a defensive reply to whatever the Trump related post is lol
It might brighten the mood at least!
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u/Fireando 1d ago
The US thinks other countries will accept it because they depend on the US forever. The fall will be big, the countries will rearrange themselves among themselves and isolate the USA. China wins without having to do anything.
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u/firethorne 1d ago
Yep. I think we are now on course for the USD as the world's default reserve currency to end.
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u/lOo_ol 1d ago
It's been on that path for a while. Foreign nations saw that coming. The share of USD in total world reserve dropped by 16% in the last 10 years. Countries have already been diversifying away from the USD.
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u/Inside-Ad-8935 1d ago
Trump is the symptom not the cause.
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u/Technical-Dingo5093 1d ago
don't know why this is getting downvoted. it's sad yes, trump is seriously messed up, yes.
But let's not forget, half the american population cheered him on and voted for him. Why? Because it is not Trump who is sick. It is american society. Collective delusion of grandeur and self-importance is nothing new. Many nations have gone through it. For some reason people think/thought the US is immune.
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u/Inside-Ad-8935 1d ago
It’s not solely an American problem, Id argue it’s a western problem.
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u/Kaymish_ 1d ago
For sure. It's pretty obvious this is another period of capitalism in deep decay. It's like we're in 1935 instead of 2025. Except Oswald Mosely is in power in the UK, and the Business plot has won in the US.
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u/lOo_ol 1d ago
The way I see it, the cancer has been there for a while, it just metastasized.
Economic growth artificially maintained by debt, growing deficit, reckless cash printing, nationalism taught in classrooms, poor education... a radical nationalist like Trump promising to shut the borders was bound to get elected one day or another.
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u/Lammara 1d ago
For real. What we are seeing is the result of a multi decade campaign run by right wing powers and billionaires to take control of the government and minds of the people.
First we had fox news. And I don't think the propagandists back then could have dreamed of a better delivery method. Then social media and podcasts came and it was easier than ever to influence the minds of the populace
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u/DracoAdamantus 1d ago
The US does not think that. One absolutely insane narcissistic failure of a human being with the cognition of a third grader thinks that, his yes men and cultists refuse to question it, and the rest of us are suffering for it.
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u/Fireando 1d ago
Unfortunately, this human being was elected by a majority of votes and is putting into practice many things he had already said during the campaign. So unfortunately a significant part of the population agrees with him, or at least did. This is not a criticism of the population, it is more of an observation of how the extreme right is manipulating people to the point of winning elections with absurd proposals, because he is not doing things different from what he preaches. And this applies to elections in the USA and several countries. Unfortunately.
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u/AnInsultToFire 1d ago
China loses their largest export market at a time when their population is collapsing and their entire real estate market is a house of cards.
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u/lOo_ol 1d ago
"their largest export market"
Chinese exports to the US is now 2.7% of China's GDP...
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u/ImpromptuFanfiction 1d ago
We’re still their largest buyer. Person you replied to isn’t wrong.
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u/lOo_ol 1d ago
He is absolutely wrong in implying that China needs exports to the US to avoid economic collapse. 2.7% is marginal. That's just Americans having a hard time facing the fact that the world doesn't orbit around them.
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u/ImpromptuFanfiction 1d ago
He is just saying that china loses their largest export market at a time when their economy isn’t exactly the strongest, which is true. There’s no need for you to extrapolate with such fervor.
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u/EuphoricAdvantage 12h ago
He is just saying that china loses their largest export market at a time when their economy isn’t exactly the strongest
He's not just saying that.
This is what they said and you have interpreted it just as much as the person you're replying to has.
China loses their largest export market at a time when their population is collapsing and their entire real estate market is a house of cards.
You can interpret this as "their economy isn’t exactly the strongest" but you can also easily interpret this as "their economy is close to collapsing".
Pointing out that Chinese exports to the US are only 2.7% of China's GDP is a reasonable response to the latter interpretation. They're using it to say "losing the US export market won't collapse China's economy" in response to the interpretation "this is happening while China's economy is close to collapsing".
They even laid this out explicitly in their previous comment "He is absolutely wrong in implying that China needs exports to the US to avoid economic collapse."
You've interpreted the person you agree with more charitably while interpreting the person you disagree with less charitably. The result is that the person you disagree with looks silly.
Congrats on being the median Redditor.
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u/lOo_ol 1d ago
They’re still showing growth. So if I have a portfolio with 97.3% in an ETF that’s doing fine, and freak out over a 2.7% position that’s not, you’d rightfully tell me to relax, wouldn’t you?
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u/ImpromptuFanfiction 1d ago
Sure, but that’s not what we were talking about. If you want to invent arguments we’re not having then go grab your toys and play in the corner.
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u/neverspeakofme 1d ago
You should think about where you got that information from and question its agenda, as China's exports to US has fallen below 3% of China's GDP for a few years now.
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u/sirkarmalots 1d ago
I wonder who the WORLDto will side with considering he’s screwing the whole world.
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u/Alone-Supermarket-98 1d ago
While I absollutely do not agree with how Trump is handling this, consider why this is happening.
For example, before this chaos started, the US was tarrifing cars and car parts from the EU at 2.5%, but the EU was tarrifing US cars and car parts 10%, and they consistantly refused to change their policies. That's just one of thousands of instances.
Who has been screwing whom? Of course the world is going to scream.
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u/EducationalImpact633 1d ago
“While the EU applies a 10% Most Favored Nation (MFN) tariff on cars, it’s important to note that the US imposes a 25% tariff on pickup trucks—the largest segment of the US auto market”
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_25_541
He is cherry-picking something fierce, read up on it and don’t just accept his numbers.
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u/Alone-Supermarket-98 1d ago
What manufacturers in europe make a pickup truck? VW used to in the 1970s-80s, but Europeans dont buy pickup trucks. Of the very few sold in europe, the three most popular ones are Ford Ranger, Toyota Hilux, and Isuzu D-Max
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u/CapsicumIsWoeful 1d ago
VW makes the Amorak, it’s somewhat popular here in Australia. It’s a ute (what we call pickup trucks) the same size as the Hilux.
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u/EducationalImpact633 1d ago
Hardly any now, most have moved overseas. I wonder if that might have something to do with the 25% tariffs from the leading consumer of pickup trucks? Do you think there might be a connection? I wonder if Trump mentions that when he cries about how everyone treats the US badly lol
In any case the tariffs imposed on Europe from the US have nothing to do with the European market. The tariffs does not affect the consumer here only the producer and since the US have so high tariffs on that item, and the main market is the US it’s simply put not worth to produce it in Europe.
We cover for that in other places like the general 10% vs 2,5% tariff that you spoke of. It’s a 2 party agreement that have settled over a long period of time in the market. It’s fair and have evolved naturally.
So in other words, Trump both want to keep the cake and eat it. Or to answer the original question, it’s the US that tries to screw Europe.
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u/Mountaingiraffe 1d ago
And in what world is trump's response constructive? Realistic? Measured? Sane? Don't pretend like this is the action of a smart leader. The moron is putting tariffs on uninhabited countries. That should tell you enough. He's not taking this seriously
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u/Alone-Supermarket-98 1d ago
Once again, in case you missed it, I state that I absolutely do not agree with how he is handling this.
There is a problem of inequity in tarrif regimes which should be addressed, but not like this.
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u/sirkarmalots 1d ago
But they all say it’s the consumer that pays. So if they were adding tariffs isn’t it THEIR consumers paying?
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u/Alone-Supermarket-98 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yes, the consumer ends up paying the price, which means US vehicles are being arbitrarily forced to charge higher prices in foreign markets, making US cars less attractive to foreign buyers and depressing sales overseas. Meanwhile the US has allowed foreign car manufacturers to sell in the US with very little tarrif markup, making their vehicles much more competitive to buyers.
Look at another example of what india charges...150% on imported liquor and 100% on agricultural products from the US. How can US manufacturers and farmers ever hope to sell anything in those markets? But even after Trump increased tarrifs on India, the US is still only charging them 26%
It is that kind of inequity in treatment that is at the heart of the matter, however, I would have thought diplomacy would have been less disruptive to accomplishing these goals.
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u/Standardly 1d ago edited 1d ago
The difference is countries like India are protecting domestic industries. Trump is attempting to "protect" industries that we don't really have.
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u/callsonreddit 1d ago
What do you think will happen?
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u/lOo_ol 1d ago
Probably nothing from the WTO. Like the UN opposed the war in Iraq, it will most likely come down to nations individually taking measures against the US or not.
At this point, even if Trump backs down, countries will undeniably consider rebalancing their trade without the US over the years, or at least they should.
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u/Next-Problem728 1d ago
WTO does ultimately fine and apply fines retroactively, it’s not the UN.
So given that there is already an order for trade, and congress only has power to tariff….is this going to be walked or talked back?
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u/Primetime-Kani 1d ago
US and China don’t give a f about WTO other than just using it for talking points. Rules are ignored by strong whenever inconvenient
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u/addikt06 1d ago
Trump is a moron but China is the biggest abuser of trade laws in human history
-Unhinged currency manipulation. Ever wonder why the Renmbi remains in that range?
-Captial outflows manipulation
-State backed companies everywhere who spy and feed their military
-Illegal dumping
-Abuse of worker rights
and the list goes on and on...
The real question is why did the US let china enter the WTO?
Biggest clown move of all time.
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u/AnInsultToFire 1d ago
I think I read that the dispute settlement body has no judges because the USA was refusing to appoint any.
In any case, in a WTO dispute the only thing the aggrieved party can do is lay a counter-tariff.
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u/Alone-Supermarket-98 1d ago
Great....when they get to the WTO, maybe china can explain all of its protectionist trade policies, government subsidies, and IP theft.
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u/CatDaddy2828 1d ago
First lawsuit filed on the illegal tariffs in Florida. - https://www.reuters.com/legal/trump-administration-sued-over-chinese-import-tariffs-2025-04-03/
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u/Ashamed_Ad_8365 1d ago
This is for the previous tariffs.
The new ones are even more obviously illegal.
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u/reaper527 1d ago
First lawsuit filed on the illegal tariffs in Florida.
being bad policy doesn't make them illegal.
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u/hurricaneviper72 1d ago
I bought into Apple after the stock split during COVID for like $127 a share or something. Should I dump it at $193 and buy back in later? Or just ride this out and maybe add a little?
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u/myychair 1d ago
What the administration either doesn’t realize or fails to acknowledge is that everyone relied on us because we more or less forced them too by making it the most lucrative and easy way for them to trade.
It has nothing to do with competence levels of these countries but xenophobia has them combined of otherwise
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u/unevenvenue 1d ago
I'm so happy I continued to invest in American battery companies and Australian/African mining companies.
I believe they will POP once these tariffs take hold and the US starts pining for materials.
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u/realoctopod 13h ago
The US gets told by the WTO all the time that the stuff they are doing is wrong or illegal, and they still do it. Nothing will come of this.
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u/post_scripted 1d ago
The world has changed. China are the good guys now it seems... What a weird time.
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u/BBOY6814 1d ago
Canada has filed multiple complaints with the WTO over trade disputes with the U.S. in the past and has won nearly all of them. The U.S doesn’t give a shit though, and never changed their behaviour or remediated the problem in any way even before these tariffs were a thing.
China is about to learn the same thing!
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