Shocks of all shocks the WTO ruled in the United States favor on China restricting U.S. imports, one of many, many unfair trade practices by China.
The World Trade Organization's top arbitrators upheld a ruling that China is illegally restricting imports of U.S. music, films and books, and Washington pushed forward with a new case accusing China of manipulating the prices for key ingredients in steel and aluminum production.
Monday's verdict by the WTO's appellate body knocked down China's objections to an August decision that came down decisively against Beijing's policy of forcing American media producers to route their business through state-owned companies.
If China fails over the next year to bring its practices in line with international trade law, the U.S. can ask the WTO to authorize commercial sanctions against Chinese goods.
The Asian country's import restrictions have been a key gripe of Western exporters, who complain that China's rapid rise as a trade juggernaut has been aided by unfair policies that boost sales of Chinese goods abroad while limiting the amount of foreign products entering the Chinese market.
Strike a minor victory for the United States!
good news entertainment
This is good news for the relatively few W-2 income workers in the entertainment industry and especially good news for artist and those with equity positions.
More interestingly, it speaks volumes about the de-laborization of American industry. Nothing in this ruling or the “pressing ahead” with metals pricing issue has anything to do with millions of factory manufacturing workers both blue and white collar.
Wouldn’t be nice if the ruling said that China is restricting automobile imports. But, then again, that would probably have more of an impact on Mexico, Korea and Japan than the US.
I guess we have no problem with WTO regulations of factory manufactured products because the US has entered a post-industrial age economy that is not factory manufacturing centered.
To bad no one told the industrial unions, when there were such things, that the US was getting out of the manufacturing business. Sadly, they were so focused on mico-factory floor issues like ‘break-time’ they never saw the new world train coming at them. Well, the train came and went and now they are on a permanent break-time as are their children and probably grandchildren.