BRUSSELS — Import tariffs tend to disproportionately hit low-income households, the World Trade Organization (WTO) said in a report on Monday, countering what it sees as backlash against open markets and rising protectionism.

WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said the 2024 World Trade Report reaffirmed trade’s role in reducing poverty and sharing prosperity “contrary to the currently fashionable notion” that trade was creating a more unequal world.

Globally, restrictive trade policies often have a disproportionate impact on low-income households, women and on smaller companies that may struggle with increased fixed costs of trade, the WTO report said.

The United States is poised to hike tariffs on a range of Chinese imports, including a quadrupling of the rate for electric vehicles (EV), while Canada has matched the US EV rate and the European Union had introduced its own EV duties.

China has responded with investigations into EU dairy, pork and brandy imports and canola from Canada.

US presidential candidate Donald Trump has proposed a 10% tariff on all imports and a higher rate for those from China.

The WTO report said that on the whole, low-income households typically faced a greater burden from higher tariffs.

In the United States, consumer goods from China that are now exempt from import tariffs are predominantly shipped to low-income regions, benefiting poorer households.

Richer households consume a greater share of imports from high-income economies, the WTO report said.

Protectionist policies may fail, the report said, because they often lead to higher domestic prices that reduce consumption. They may also lead to damaging retaliation by trading partners.

Tariffs then prove politically hard to remove even when no protection for a sector is needed, locking in higher prices.

The WTO report concludes that protectionism is not an effective path to inclusiveness, but an expensive way to protect specific jobs that can raise costs for other sectors and risk retaliation from disgruntled partners. — Reuters

BEIJING/HONG KONG — The United States and China held theater-level commander talks for the first time on Tuesday, Chinese authorities said, as the two nations look to stabilize military ties and prevent military misunderstandings.

Washington seeks to open new channels of regular military communication with Beijing since ties sank to a historic low after the United States downed a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon last year.

Admiral Sam Paparo, head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, held a video telephone call with his counterpart Wu Yanan of the Southern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

Both sides had an “in depth exchange of views on issues of common concern,” the Chinese defense ministry said in a readout.

Paparo urged the PLA “to reconsider its use of dangerous, coercive, and potentially escalatory tactics in the South China Sea and beyond,” the Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement that described the exchange as “constructive and respectful.”

He also stressed the importance of continued talks to clarify intent and reduce the risk of misperception or miscalculation.

The call followed a meeting in Beijing last month between US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s leading military adviser, at which the talks were agreed.

The US Indo-Pacific Command’s areas of responsibility include the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, two hotspots for regional tension that are flashpoints in US-China ties.

Most two-way military engagements were suspended for almost two years after Nancy Pelosi, then the speaker of the US House of Representatives, visited Taiwan in August 2022.

Last week Nicholas Burns, the US ambassador to China, said he was worried by “the aggressive nature” of its military buildup and its navy’s intimidating behavior towards US allies the Philippines and Japan.

“I certainly worry about an unintended conflict between our military forces, an accident, an accidental collision,” he told the magazine Foreign Policy in an online interview.

The United States plans to send a senior Pentagon official to a major security forum in China later this week. — Reuters

SEOUL — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the country is now implementing a nuclear force construction policy to increase the number of nuclear weapons “exponentially,” state media KCNA reported on Tuesday.

In a speech on North Korea’s founding anniversary on Monday, Kim said the country must more thoroughly prepare its “nuclear capability and its readiness to use it properly at any given time in ensuring the security rights of the state”, said KCNA.

A strong military presence is needed to face “the various threats posed by the United States and its followers”, he added.

Mr. Kim also said North Korea is facing a “grave threat” from what it sees as a US-led nuclear-based military bloc in the region.

South Korea’s deputy defense minister for policy, Cho Chang-rae, and his US and Japanese counterparts on Tuesday condemned Pyongyang’s recent diversification of nuclear delivery systems, tests and launches of multiple ballistic missiles.

Meeting in Seoul, the three reaffirmed a commitment to strengthen trilateral cooperation to ensure peace in the region, including by deterring North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats, according to a joint statement released by the US State department.

They also agreed to hold a second trilateral military exercise known as Freedom Edge in the near term.

South Korea will also hold a defense ministerial meeting with the member states of the United Nations Command (UNC) on Tuesday.

The UNC is led by the commander of the US military stationed in South Korea.

Last month, Germany became the latest to join the UNC in South Korea that helps police the heavily fortified border with North Korea and has committed to defend the South in the event of a war.

North Korea has criticized the UNC as an “illegal war organization” and Germany’s entry into the US-led UN border monitoring force as raising tensions. — Reuters