G7 reaches consensus on China dumping, human rights abuses -U.S. official

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, US President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and South Korean President Moon Jae-in attend a working session during the G7 Summit in Carbis Bay, Cornwall, UK, June 12, 2021. Leon Neal / Pool via REUTERS

CARBIS BAY, England (Reuters) – G7 leaders have agreed on the need for a common approach to China’s sales of exports at unfairly low prices and human rights abuses, said a senior official in President Joe’s administration Biden on Saturday.

The official said, on condition of anonymity, that the leaders of the group of the seven largest developed countries in the world had also agreed on the need to coordinate supply chain resilience to ensure democracies are mutually supportive.

“I would say there was unanimous agreement on willingness to denounce human rights violations and violations of fundamental freedoms that invoke our common values,” the official said.

“There was an obligation to take action in response to what we see.” The official said the G7 was a long way from three years ago when the final communiqué failed to mention China.

According to the legal structure of the World Trade Organization, the designation of China as a “non-market economy” enables its trading partners, including the United States, to use a special framework to determine whether China’s exports are being sold at unjustifiably low prices and, if so, to apply additional anti-dumping duties.

Reporting by Steve Holland, writing by Elizabeth Piper; Adaptation by William James