China imposes 73.5% preliminary tariff on Canadian pea starch

Gracelin Baskaran, founding director of the critical minerals security program at CSIS, joins BNN Bloomberg to discuss critical minerals and natural resources.

BEIJING -- China said on Tuesday it will impose a 73.5 per cent preliminary tariff on imports of Canadian pea starch from July 1, as part of temporary anti-dumping measures after a more than 10-month investigation.

The Ministry of Commerce said its investigation had found that Canadian pea starch was being “dumped” in China, causing “material injury to the domestic industry.”

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The probe was launched last August, on the same day China imposed preliminary anti-dumping duties on Canadian canola, escalating a year-long trade dispute that began after Ottawa levied tariffs on Chinese electric vehicle imports.

Tuesday’s decision shows that trade tensions remain despite an improvement in relations since January, when Prime Minister Mark Carney visited Beijing and reached an initial agreement to sharply lower tariff rates on Canadian canola imports and to suspend duties on some Canadian agricultural products, including a 100 per cent levy on Canadian peas.

(Reporting by Ryan Woo and Ella Cao; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Kevin Buckland)