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http://www.newenergyworldnetwork.com/renewable-energy-news/news-type/policy-news/united-steelworkers-files-case-against-%e2%80%98protectionist%e2%80%99-chinese-clean-energy-practices.html

US trade union United Steelworkers (USW) is to file a case against China for its ‘protectionist and predatory practices’ in the renewable energy sector.

The union will make its case to the US Trade Representative’s office, which investigates protectionist and unfair trade practices. By law, President Barack Obama’s administration will have 45 days to decide whether to investigate the case.
USW is expected to release details of the case later today, outlining five areas where it believes China engages in unfair trading practices in the sector.
In April 2009, USW, which has 700,000 members, successfully made a similar case against the Chinese tyre industry. In September 2009, the US imposed steep duties of 35 per cent on Chinese-made tyres for passenger vehicles and light trucks. The union said that over the past year these tariffs have helped protect US jobs.
At the time, China called it a ‘grave act of trade protectionism by the US’. It appealed to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which has not yet resolved the case.
In May this year, US Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke led a delegation of 24 US clean energy companies on a trade mission to China. Doubts remain over the regulatory environment, especially China’s recently announced ‘indigenous innovation’ product accreditation system, which some suspect will put foreign companies at a disadvantage.
‘Businesses frequently don’t know what the rules are [in China], how they are enforced, or how decisions are made,’ Locke warned at the time. ‘Especially in the energy sector, where upfront capital investment can be in the hundreds of millions of dollars and have multi-decade time horizons, this uncertainty has the potential to inhibit foreign corporate investment in China.’
President Obama benefited from strong union support on the campaign trail and may come up against opposition if he were to refuse USW’s petition. But, any new tariffs would put a heavy strain on Sino-US relations, and would inevitably be appealed to the WTO.