cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/36928315

“The current global trading system is not working as it should. Guardrails are clearly missing. On this point, Donald is right – there is a serious problem. But we strongly feel that the biggest challenges are not the trade between G7 partners,” said the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen during a G7 meeting in Canada.

“The sources of the biggest collective problem [for the G7 countries] we have has its origins in the accession of China to the WTO in 2001,” she added.

“China has largely shown [its] unwillingness to live within the constraints of the rules based international system. While other opened their market China focused undercutting intellectual property protections, massive subsidies with the aim to dominate global manufacturing and supply chains. This is not market competition – it is distortion with intent. And it undermines our manufacturing sectors.”

Von der Leyen added that this is the problem the G7 must solve together, stressing that the G7 economies account for 45% of global GDP – and over 80% of intellectual property revenues.

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According to to a report by Euronews, von der Leyen also said during one of the meeting’s thematic sessions “China is using this quasi-monopoly [on rare earths] not only as a bargaining chip, but also weaponising it to undermine competitors in key industries.”

“We all witnessed the cost and consequences of China’s coercion through export restrictions,” she added, referring to Beijing’s recent decision to curb sales of seven types of rare earth minerals, a situation Brussels had described as “alarming”.

[…]

Von der Leyen also blasted China for flooding global markets with “subsidised overcapacity that its market cannot absorb”, name-checking the dispute over China-made electric vehicles that her Commission considers to be artificially cheaper.

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