Financial Times: China to Investigate U.S. Car Subsidies
Washington, D.C., partner Elliot Feldman, leader of Baker Hostetler's international trade practice, was quoted in the October 29, 2009, Financial Times article, "China to Investigate U.S. Car Subsidies."
According to the article, China is preparing to launch a trade investigation into whether U.S. carmakers are being unfairly subsidised by the U.S. government. The move comes at a time of heightened trade tensions between the two countries after the United States imposed duties on Chinese tires last month. Few vehicles are actually exported from the United States to China, but the move would have symbolic power by turning the tables on Washington, according to the article.
Feldman, an author of the firm's China-U.S. Trade Law blog, said the firm warned the USTR [United States Trade Representative] last January that the approach the United States was taking towards China and other countries over subsidies was dangerous in the light of the Unite States' own support for carmakers, banks and financial institutions. "We warned that other countries could apply to the United States the same principles the United States was applying to them," he said. "Apparently we have arrived."