China’s Ministry of Commerce says it may adopt countermeasures following Canada’s recent move to increase tariffs on steel imports from China.
A Chinese ministry spokesperson made the comments on July 18, saying China is “strongly dissatisfied” and “firmly opposes” Ottawa’s measures to restrict Chinese steel imports.
This follows Prime Minister Mark Carney’s
announcement earlier this week of new measures aimed at protecting Canada’s domestic steel industry from trade diversion. Among them is a 25 percent tariff, set to take effect before the end of July, on steel imports from all countries that contain steel melted and poured in China.
Other measures announced by Ottawa include capping steel imports from countries without a free trade agreement at 50 percent of their 2024 volumes—beyond which a 50 percent tariff will apply—and setting broader limits for free-trade partners at 100 percent of 2024 volumes, with the same tariff imposed on any excess.
“The combination of all these measures will ensure that Canadian steel producers have a bigger share of the Canadian market,” Carney
said on July 16.
“It will create more resilient supply chains and unlock private capital for Canadian production.”
Canada last year imposed 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum products coming directly from China, along with 100 percent levies on Chinese-made electric vehicles. The move brought Canada in line with the United States, which had
introduced the same levies months earlier.
Ottawa
said at the time that Canadian industries, including steel and aluminum, were being threatened by “unfair competition from Chinese producers, who benefit from China’s intentional, state-directed policy of overcapacity and oversupply, as well as its lack of rigorous labour and environmental standards.”
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Then, in a move widely seen as retaliation against Canadian tariffs, China earlier this year
imposed levies on Canadian agricultural and food products, saying they
stemmed from a domestic “anti-discrimination” investigation the regime initiated last September.
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Ottawa has called the tariffs “unjustified” and
rejected the basis of China’s probe, saying Canada ensures “a level playing field” for Canadian businesses and supports “fair, rules-based” trade.
Following this year’s G7 Leaders’ Summit, Carney
said all leaders called on China to “refrain from market distortions and harmful overcapacity.” China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun then reacted to the comments,
characterizing them as an attempt to “slander and smear” Beijing.
Beyond the current tariffs, China had earlier taken aim at Canada’s canola industry. The regime put bans on several Canadian imports in 2019 after the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver on a U.S. extradition request in December 2018.
The bans were eventually
lifted in 2022 following the release of Meng in 2021, with China also releasing Canadian citizens Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig after detaining them in apparent retaliation for over 1,000 days.
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