World Trade Organization Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has appointed a three-person panel led by the former attorney general of Botswana to hear China’s complaint that electric vehicles subsidies and other incentives provided under the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act violate global trade rules.
China requested Okonjo-Iweala appoint the panelists after the two sides were unable to agree on a set of adjudicators. The move comes nearly nine months after Beijing first asked the United States for consultations on the landmark climate provisions, in a sign of how slowly the WTO system can move to resolve disputes.
Okonjo-Iweala selected Athaliah Molokomme to chair the panel. The 65-year-old Yale-trained lawyer is a former Botswana attorney general and a former ambassador to the WTO. The two other panelists are Amina Mohamed, a former Kenyan ambassador to the WTO, and Elaine Feldman, a former Canadian trade diplomat.
China’s case targets subsidies for electric vehicle production and other tax incentives for clean energy. However, it will now fall to President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration to defend the measure, a questionable prospect since Trump has criticized much of the Biden administration’s agenda supporting electric vehicles and clean energy.
