WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A top U.S. trade official said on Tuesday the United States was not satisfied with the way China was meeting its obligations in the World Trade Organization and would continue to step up its enforcement activity.

“We are intensifying our efforts and we are not going to let go,” Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for China Claire Reade told the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.

The panel, created by a 2000 law establishing “permanent normal trade relations” with China, was holding a hearing on how well China has honored its WTO commitments during its first 10 years of membership.

Reade said China fell short on a number of fronts. He highlighted four areas that were top concerns for the United States: China’s agricultural market barriers, its weak intellectual property rights protection, its discriminatory industrial policies and its “overly burdensome and capricious licensing and operating requirements” in services sectors.

She noted that President Barack Obama’s administration has already filed five cases against China at the WTO since taking office in January 2009.

“I think it’s very clear this administration has made enforcement a top priority,” Reade said.

However, she declined further comment after the hearing when asked if any new cases were in the works.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Ten years after joining the World Trade Organization, China still does not fully embrace many fundamental free market principles of the global trade body, the U.S. Trade Representative’s office said on Monday in an annual report to Congress.

“In 2011, the prevalence of interventionist policies and practices, coupled with the large role of state-owned enterprises in China’s economy, continued to generate significant concerns among U.S. stakeholders,” the USTR said.

“Looking ahead, essential work for China includes the need to reduce market access barriers, uniformly follow the fundamental principles of non-discrimination and transparency, fully embrace the rule of law, and fully institutionalize market mechanisms,” the report said.

“Completing this work is critical to realizing the tremendous potential presented by China’s WTO membership, including the breadth and depth of trade and investment — and prosperity — possible in a thriving, balanced global trading system.”

A deal struck by former USTR Charlene Barshefsky in 1999 set the stage for Congress to approve “permanent normal trade relations” (PNTR) with China the following year and then for China to enter the WTO on December 11, 2001.

Its bid to join the world trade body took 15 years, surpassed only recently by Russia, whose entry is expected to be approved this week in Geneva after some 18 years of talks.

Many members of the U.S. Congress remain skeptical over the benefits of China’s accession. They blame the huge U.S. trade deficit with China, which hit a record $272 billion last year, for millions of lost U.S. manufacturing jobs.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States on Friday rejected a European Union plan to eliminate subsidies provided to Airbus (EAD.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and said it would request authorization from the World Trade Organization to impose potentially $7 billion to $10 billion annually in trade sanctions.

“The WTO clearly found that every single grant of launch aid to Airbus, for every single aircraft that company produced, was a WTO-inconsistent subsidy that caused unfair adverse effects to U.S. industry and jobs,” U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in a statement.

“Our action today underscores what we have said all along – that the United States cannot accept anything less than an end to this subsidized financing,” Kirk said, referring to European “launch aid” loans for Airbus.

Kirk added the United States remains prepared to engage in negotiations with the EU with the “goal of ending subsidized financing at the earliest possible date.”

John Clancy, a spokesman for the European Commission in Brussels, called the U.S. sanctions threat “premature and not in line with the appropriate sequence of events in WTO disputes. We will nevertheless review the requests carefully and consider the next steps.”

Last week the EU presented a plan to comply with a WTO appellate body ruling against European government support for Airbus in a case brought by Washington in 2004.

Together with an EU countercomplaint over U.S. support for Boeing (BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the long-running aircraft dispute is the world’s largest trade fight, affecting more than 100,000 jobs in a plane market worth more than $2 trillion.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. trade deficit narrowed in October to its lowest in 10 months, but imports from China hit a record high, a government report showed on Friday.

The trade gap totaled $43.5 billion, in line with a consensus estimate from analysts before the report. However, the Commerce Department revised its estimate of the September trade deficit to $44.2 billion from $43.1 billion.

As a result, the October trade gap narrowed 1.6 percent from September, instead of widening, as most analysts expected.

Both U.S. imports and exports declined in October, in a possible sign of weakening demand in the United States and abroad.

Imports fell 1.0 percent to $222.6 billion, led by a $3.6 billion drop in industrial supplies and materials. The average price for imported oil fell for a fifth consecutive month to $98.84 per barrel, from its May peak of $108.70.

Despite the overall import decline, imports of capital goods and food, feeds and beverages increased to records in October.

Imports from China rose to a record $37.8 billion and imports from Japan increased to $12.3 billion, the highest since April 2008.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States asked the World Trade Organization on Thursday to strike down duties that China imposed on U.S. poultry products in apparent retaliation for U.S. moves to restrict Chinese imports.

“The United States will not stand idly by while China appears to have misused its trade remedy laws and put American jobs at risk,” U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in a statement just a few days before the tenth anniversary of China’s accession to the WTO.

It is the 12th case the United States has filed against China since Beijing entered the world trade body on Dec 11, 2001. It comes as President Barack Obama has faced some criticism on both the right and the left for not taking a tougher line with China on trade.

China imposed the duties, ranging from about 55 percent to 135 percent, on U.S. chicken “broiler products” in August and September 2010, claiming they were subsidized and “dumped” in the Chinese market at less than fair value.

Beijing began the investigation that led to the duties on September 27, 2009 – just a few weeks after U.S. President Barack Obama’s decision to slap an emergency 35 percent tariff on Chinese-made tires to stop a market-disrupting surge.

The duties were also seen as tit-for-tat retaliation for a U.S. congressional ban on cooked chicken from China.

The United States was the largest exporter of broiler products to China before the duties were imposed. Since then, U.S. broiler product exports to China have fallen by nearly 90 percent, the U.S. trade office said.

WASHINGTON, Dec 2 (Reuters) – A U.S. trade panel on Friday approved an investigation into charges of unfair Chinese trade practices in the solar energy sector, setting the stage for possible steep U.S. duties and ratcheting up tensions with Beijing on the green trade front.

The U.S. International Trade Commission voted 6-0 that there was a reasonable indication that SolarWorld Industries America and other U.S. producers have been harmed by the imports or could have been.

The vote allows the Commerce Department to continue an investigation into whether the Chinese government provides illegal subsidies for its solar energy sector and whether Chinese companies are selling solar cells and panels in the United States at unfairly low prices.

Beijing has criticized the case as U.S. protectionism and launched its own investigation of U.S. programs to support the renewable energy sector, a move that SolarWorld President Gordon Brinser has dubbed “retaliatory.”

The spat is one of several trade fights that have broken out on the environmental front, as governments seek to reduce dependence on carbon-emitting fossil fuels blamed for global climate change.

U.S. imports of the solar products from China totaled $1.5 billion in 2010, up from $640 million in 2009.

SolarWorld and its six coalition partners, who have chosen to remain anonymous, have alleged Chinese producers are undercutting U.S. prices by as much as 250 percent.

WASHINGTON, Dec 1 (Reuters) – The president of SolarWorld Industries America said he was certain a U.S. trade panel would approve on Friday an investigation into charges that Chinese producers are selling solar cells and panels in the United States at unfairly low prices.

“We’re very confident with the outcome of it because there clearly has been harm in the industry from the actions by the Chinese suppliers and the Chinese government,” Gordon Brinser told Reuters a day ahead of the vote in the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC).

SolarWorld is the U.S. arm of SolarWorld AG , one of Germany’s largest solar product manufacturers.

It filed a case in October along with several other U.S. solar energy product companies asking for duties of more than 100 percent on Chinese-made solar cells and panels.

The ITC will vote on Friday on whether there is enough evidence that U.S. producers have been harmed or are threatened with injury from imports to allow the case to proceed.

Imports of the solar products from China rose to $1.5 billion in 2010, from $640 million in 2009.

Brinser blames the lower-priced Chinese product for the company’s decision to close its Camarillo, California production facility and lay off close to 200 workers.

WASHINGTON/GENEVA, Dec 1 (Reuters) – The European Union said it had met a deadline for complying with a WTO ruling against billions of euros of illegal subsidies for aircraft maker Airbus and outlined its actions in a letter to the United States and the World Trade Organization.

Neither side involved in the world’s largest trade dispute disclosed what steps the European Union had taken, but some trade experts doubted it would succeed in putting an end to the long-running spat between Airbus and its U.S. rival Boeing Co .

“Through this package we address all categories of subsidies, all forms of adverse effects, and all models of Airbus aircraft covered by the WTO rulings,” EU trade spokesman John Clancy said in a statement on Thursday.

The reference to “all models covered by the rulings” is crucial because Boeing is adamant that the EU must not just undo old subsidies, but also promise not to give Airbus any more in future. But the two sides may differ about whether the WTO ruling covers future as well as past payments.

Clancy said the EU expected an “equally solid set of compliance actions” from the United States after the WTO issues its final ruling on subsidies to Boeing early next year.

Airbus, part of EADS, said in a statement that only minor changes to European policies were needed to achieve compliance with the ruling by a WTO appeals panel, which ordered the EU to comply by Dec. 1 in a ruling handed down six months ago.

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said he needed time to verify that the EU had really scrapped its subsidies.

WASHINGTON/GENEVA (Reuters) – A dispute over government aid for aircraft rivals Airbus and Boeing Co enters a delicate stage on Thursday as Europe faces a deadline to tell the United States how it is eliminating billions of dollars in subsidies struck down by the World Trade Organization.

“It is by a huge margin the most commercially significant case the United States has ever prosecuted at the WTO,” U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in a speech on Wednesday at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The WTO found problems with European Union “launch aid” loans aimed at helping Airbus after the United States filed a complaint. A WTO appeals panel issued a final ruling against Airbus in May, giving the EU until Dec 1 to come into compliance.

EU Trade Spokesman John Clancy said the EU planned to send a document to the WTO and USTR describing how it had achieved compliance. Several trade sources said the EU would send the document at 5 p.m. Geneva time.

“We have always said that we would honor our WTO obligations and comply fully and on time. We have been working with the governments of France, Germany, Spain and UK, as well as with Airbus, on a series of steps that achieves just that,” Clancy said in an emailed statement.

“This will be a substantial package. We expect that we receive an equally solid set of compliance measures from the United States once the WTO has finally ruled on subsidies to Boeing.”

The EU has challenged some U.S. government programs to help Boeing at the WTO, but that case is still in the appeals stage, with a decision widely expected around March or April 2012.

WASHINGTON, Dec 1 (Reuters) – A dispute over government aid for aircraft rivals Airbus and Boeing enters a delicate stage on Thursday as Europe faces a deadline to tell the United States how it is eliminating billions of dollars in subsidies struck down by the World Trade Organization.

“It is by a huge margin the most commercially significant case the United States has ever prosecuted at the WTO,” U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in a speech on Wednesday at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The WTO found problems with European Union “launch aid” loans aimed at helping Airbus after the United States filed a complaint. A WTO appeals panel issued a final ruling against Airbus in May, giving the EU until Dec 1 to come into compliance.

The EU also has successfully challenged some U.S. government programs to help Boeing at the WTO, but that case is still in the appeals stage.

U.S. officials contend the two cases show European governments have provided more assistance to Airbus than the United States has to Boeing over the years.

The United States will have to judge whether it thinks the EU has taken adequate steps to address the problems cited by the WTO. If Washington is not satisfied, it could begin proceedings at the WTO to impose trade retaliation, known in trade jargon as “suspending concessions.”

Kirk told the Chamber that the United States was open to a negotiated settlement that addresses “WTO-inconsistent” subsidies on both sides of the Atlantic.