Beijing retaliates against US trade complaint

China has fired back with a complaint of its own in response to US President Barack Obama recently filed WTO case on Chinese subsidies to auto makers, Reuters reported. In the second complaint in a matter of months to the World Trade Organization, the US claimed Monday that American jobs were at stake due to the subsidies, alleged to be more than US$1 billion between 2009 and 2011. Beijing immediately followed suit with a counter-complaint concerning US duties placed on about 30 products including steel, tires, magnets, chemicals, kitchen appliances, wood flooring and wind towers, the WTO said in a statement. The US Congress voted in March to impose duties on subsidized Chinese and Vietnamese goods in a bid to protect US jobs. China’s Commerce Ministry spokesman Shen Danyang said in a statement that China hoped the US would revise the complaint, calling the move a “mistaken policy.”