White House to File Trade Case Against China at W.T.O. Over Export Subsidies

HONG KONG — The Obama administration announced on Wednesday morning that it was filing a broad trade case against China at the World Trade Organization, accusing Beijing of providing illegal export subsidies in seven different industries.

The trade case comes as the White House is trying to persuade Congress that it is taking a tough stand in trade negotiations. The administration wants Congress to give it the power to negotiate a Trans-Pacific Partnership lowering trade barriers and adding a range of measures protecting patents and other forms of intellectual property across a dozen Pacific nations, and to be able to submit the agreement to Congress for a yes-or-no vote with no amendments allowed.

The scale of the alleged subsidies is small compared with China’s overall exports of goods to the United States, which reached $466.7 billion last year. American exports to China, by comparison, totaled $124 billion last year, the Commerce Department announced on Feb. 5.

The New York Times