China launches investigation with World Trade Organization over Canadian tariffs

China has initiated an anti-discrimination investigation in response to the tariff hikes the Canadian government will place on electric vehicles (EVs), as well as steel and aluminum products imported from China.

The Government of Canada announced a series of measures to, what it said, “level the playing field” for Canadian workers and allow Canada’s EV industry and steel and aluminum producers to compete in domestic, North American and global markets.

The tariffs include implementing a 100 per cent surtax on all Chinese-made EVs, which will be effective Oct. 1 and includes electric and certain hybrid passenger automobiles, trucks, buses and delivery vans. The surtax will apply in addition to the Most-Favoured Nation import tariff of 6.1 per cent that currently applies to EVs produced in China and imported into Canada.

“When setting the surtax rates, Canada has blindly followed the United States without conducting its own investigation or research, a move that is extremely subjective, vicious and unscrupulous,” said Liang Ming, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation under the MOC.

The Canadian government also plans to apply a 25 per cent surtax on imports of steel and aluminum products from China, effective Oct. 15.

China’s State Council Information Office posted that its anti-discrimination probe into Canada’s tariffs will be initiated in accordance with relevant stipulations of China’s foreign trade law, and corresponding measures will be taken subsequently in light of actual conditions, a spokesperson of the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said in an online statement.

China says Canada has adopted discriminatory, unilateral, restrictive measures targeting imports from China, in disregard of opposition from various parties, according to a spokesperson, noting that China is “strongly dissatisfied with and firmly against” such moves.

China will file an appeal to the World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement mechanism against these practices, according to the spokesperson. The country will also launch anti-dumping investigations into rapeseed imports and certain chemical products from Canada.