GENEVA, Switzerland – THE World Trade Organisation opened an investigation yesterday into US import taxes on Chinese tyres, fees Washington says are needed to slow China’s rapid export growth and protect American jobs.

The dispute focuses on a three-year tariff approved in September by President Barack Obama and is the latest in a string of trade battles between the US, the world’s biggest importer, and China, the top exporter. The two countries are also arguing over regulations affecting commerce in steel, poultry, patents and Hollywood films.

China told the WTO that the United States had broken a vow it has made with other world powers to avoid protectionism.

At a meeting of trade diplomats, US official Juan Millan expressed Washington’s disappointment in the new case, but said the tariffs were fully legal.

“Our measure is consistent with our WTO obligations,” Millan said, justifying the tyre charges on a safeguard clause in the agreement that allowed China to join the global trade body in 2001.

“We find it regrettable that China, which has benefitted greatly from its exports to the United States, would dispute this safeguard,” Millan added.

China’s exports have surged since joining the WTO, rankling manufacturers in the United States, Europe and elsewhere. Critics of the Asian country say its rise as a trade juggernaut has been aided by unfair policies that boost sales of Chinese goods abroad while limiting the amount of foreign products entering the Chinese market.

The US blocked Beijing’s request last month for a tyre probe, but could not do so a second time under WTO rules.

The arbitrators will evaluate whether the US tariffs violate rules governing trade among the WTO’s 153 members. Trade cases often take years to resolve, but can result in the WTO authorising retaliatory sanctions.

Obama ordered the higher tyre tariffs for three years, including a 35 per cent additional charge in the first year. It comes on top of a regular four per cent tariff.

Tyres imported from China are usually low-end models. While American-made, name-brand tyres can easily run to more than US$100 apiece, Chinese imports sometimes sell for half that. The tariffs would make them more expensive.

The US imported about 46 million tires from China in 2008, three times as many as in 2004. In that time, China’s share of the US market went from less than five per cent to almost 17 per cent.

Millan rejected that Washington’s move was “unfair, unreasonable or protectionist”.

Beijing notes that its tyre exports to the United States fell by about 15 per cent in the first half of 2009, and says two in three tyres exported to the US are made by Chinese-foreign joint ventures. This means American companies are also profiting from the trade, it says.