US, China fail to settle on WTO trade cases

US regulators have requested that two trade cases currently under negotiation with China be referred to the WTO for arbitration, the Financial Times reported. The two cases involve restricting foreign credit card firms’ access to China UnionPay, the country’s domestic payment system, and imposing anti-dumping and countervailing duties on what China regards as unfairly cheap US steel imports. While the negotiations over the cases began in September 2010, US negotiators announced that they could not reach a settlement and formally requested WTO arbitration on Friday. During his state visit to the US in January, President Hu Jintao said that China would implement a range of trade reforms, but US officials have expressed skepticism.