Trade Squabbles Grow with China

In what turns out to be another way of keeping U.S goods out of China, the implementation of trade rules has been challenged by the Obama Administration - in what will be one of its final acts.  The Chinese have been putting tariffs on rice, wheat and corn that favor things grown in their own country, and keep the U.S out.  The Obama Administation filed its 15th - and last- complaint with the World Trade Organization.  China then finds other ways to work around the complaints, sometimes by making cosmetic changes to their policies that promise more than they deliver;  other times, doing nothing until right before the matter comes up for review, then getting voluntary compliance from its own state-owned businesses.  In either case, their response is not going to make the new administration very happy about trade rules.  There are going to be some pretty savy traders in key positions in the new government who have seen all of this from the inside.  It will not take quite so long for these new folks to see what is going on and take action to stop it.