CANADIAN Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said Group of Seven countries have started discussing tariffs on oversupplied, low-value Chinese products.
In a news conference on Tuesday opening a meeting of G-7 finance chiefs in Banff, Alberta, Champagne said the agenda will include talks on how the countries can coordinate their actions and tackle issues around overcapacity and non-market practices, pointing to further steps to curb oversupply from China.
Some leading democracies have accused Chinese online retail platforms such as Temu and Shein of flooding their markets with low-value goods, and US President Donald Trump has already targeted these items by removing the “de minimis” exemption with his tariffs on China. That exemption had allowed these platforms to ship small packages of cheap items to the US duty free.
The European Union is also considering a flat fee on small packages entering the bloc, the Financial Times has reported. France is already pushing to add fees to such packages, while the UK is weighing a similar move.
The advanced countries will also likely hear a pitch for a coordinated effort to change the price cap on Russian oil.
“It’s a good chance to revise this existing price cap,” said Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko, who was at the news conference and attending the meetings.
Ukraine feels a change in the price cap would help “to make Russia’s economy suffer,” he said.
While European countries have pushed to lower the cap down from its current price of $60 per barrel, which was set in December 2022. The US stance was unclear after Trump’s phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday.
Trump called the tone of the phone call “excellent” and raised the prospect of doing large-scale trade with Russia if the war ends, dismaying European leaders who saw the call as a propaganda win for Putin.
The EU, meanwhile, just approved a fresh sanctions package on Russia that targets the shadow fleet of tankers helping transport and sell Russian oil. Lowering the oil price cap, however, would require G-7 agreement. –BLOOMBERG
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