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Beijing will retaliate, if US insists on trade war: Envoy

EU extends anti-dumping duties on Chinese steel rope



A worker walking past aluminium wires at a plant inside an industrial park in Binzhou, Shandong province, China                                	— Reuters A worker walking past aluminium wires at a plant inside an industrial park in Binzhou, Shandong province, China — Reuters

China will retaliate if the United States (US) insists on initiating a trade war, China's ambassador to the United States was quoted as saying by the state news agency Xinhua on Friday, reports  Reuters.

Speaking at an event held by the Fairbank Centre for Chinese Studies at Harvard University this week, Cui Tiankai said any dispute should be worked out through dialogue and a trade war would poison the atmosphere of overall China-US relations.

Cui also urged the United States to abandon a cold war and zero-sum mentality, Xinhua reported.

Another report from Brussels adds: The European Union (EU) has extended anti-dumping duties on Chinese steel rope and cables for five years following a review, the EU official journal said on Friday.

The duties, of 60.4 per cent, have applied to steel rope and cable from China since 1999 and subsequently been extended to Morocco and South Korea because EU investigations found that Chinese product was being shipped into Europe via those countries.

Certain Korean exporters were granted exemptions.

The European Commission, which oversees trade policy for the 28-country European Union, concluded that repealing the measures would likely result in a surge of steel ropes and cable imports from China at prices undercutting local producers.

The EU imported some 100 million euros ($123.25 million)worth of steel rope and cables in 2016, equivalent to a market share of about 40 per cent.

A report from Chicago further say: Several ships carrying cargoes of sorghum from the United States to China have changed course since Beijing slapped hefty anti-dumping deposits on US imports of the grain, trade sources and a Reuters analysis of export and shipping data showed.

Sorghum is a niche animal feed and a tiny slice of the billions of dollars in exports at stake in the trade dispute between the world's two largest economies, which threatens to disrupt the flow of everything from steel to electronics.

The supply-chain pain felt by sorghum suppliers on the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans underscores how quickly the mounting trade tensions between the US and China can impact the global agricultural sector, which has been reeling from low commodity prices amid a global grains glut.

Twenty ships carrying over 1.2 million tonnes of US sorghum are on the water, according to export inspections data from the USDA's Federal Grain Inspection Service. Of the armada, valued at more than $216 million, at least five changed course within hours of China's announcing tariffs on US sorghum imports on Tuesday, Reuters shipping data showed.

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