China-Australia relations: Canberra to decide ‘very shortly’ on WTO action against wine tariffs

In March, China imposed tariffs of up to 218 per cent on Australian wine for five years, formalising curbs that had been in place for months amid an increasingly fraught relationship with Canberra

In a radio interview last week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison described the tariffs as ‘completely unconscionable’

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Published: 9:12am, 16 Jun 2021Updated: 11:30am, 16 Jun 2021

Australian trade minister Dan Tehan said his government is bolstering its legal arguments before potentially asking the World Trade Organization (WTO) to resolve its wine-tariff trade dispute with China.

The WTO action was “under active consideration” and Australia would be “making a decision very shortly”, Tehan said in a Bloomberg interview on Wednesday.

“You’ve got to make sure that you’ve got the very best legal argument and the very best legal case to do that, so we want to make sure we’ve done everything we can to show the strength of our case.”

China in March imposed tariffs of up to 218 per cent on Australian wine for five years, formalising curbs that had been in place for months amid an increasingly fraught relationship with Canberra.

The top commodities buyer said that Australian wine had been subsidised and sold below market value – a view that has been rejected by the Australian government.

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