US To China: Please Don't Block Our Exports Of Recycling And Garbage; China Confirms Ban w. WTO

[hatrack]

Reuters broke the news last July that China had told the World Trade Organization that it would stop accepting shipments of rubbish such as waste plastic and paper as part of a campaign against “foreign garbage”.

The U.S. Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries said at the time that the ban would devastate an industry that supported 155,000 jobs and had exported scrap worth $5.6 billion to China in 2016. The United States raised concerns about the ban, and a subsequent revision of standards for a variety of scrap metals, at the WTO’s Council for Trade in Goods on Friday.

“China’s import restrictions on recycled commodities have caused a fundamental disruption in global supply chains for scrap materials, directing them away from productive reuse and toward disposal,” a U.S. representative told the meeting, according to a trade official in Geneva.

The United States recognized China’s environmental concerns but Beijing’s approach seemed to be having the opposite effect to what was intended, and its rules had changed far too quickly for industry to adjust, the U.S. representative told the meeting.

EDIT

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-environment-usa/u-s-asks-china-not-to-implement-ban-on-foreign-garbage-idUSKBN1GZ2WI

[Girard442]

1. One trade war, coming right up, with major repercussions.

Sorry sir, that item doesn't come consequence-free.