US Defends Itself at WTO

On the second day of a World Trade Organization review of U.S. trade policy, U.S. Ambassador Dennis Shea said it's wrong to blame America for the crisis of the multilateral trading system, as he responded to European and Chinese comments from the first day of the hearing (see 1812170007). Shea said China is arguing that it will subsidize, dump products, force technology transfer and steal business information, and claim it is all OK because American consumers pay less for Chinese imports. Any U.S. response is then decried as an abuse of power and irrational, Shea said, according to a summary of the hearing provided by a Geneva trade official. "This is not acceptable," Shea said.