China's measures imposing antidumping and countervailing duties on broiler products from the U.S. have been determined to be wrongly calculated and implemented, according to a review by a World Trade Organization panel.

A U.S. Trade Representative spokesman said, “We welcome the WTO compliance panel finding that China’s measures against U.S. broiler chicken products are unjustified. American poultry farmers and producers deserve fair access to the Chinese market. China must live up to its obligations and remove duties on U.S. poultry products that are inconsistent with its WTO obligations.”

“China expresses regret over the WTO ruling,” the country’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) said in a statement late on Thursday.

WTO first issued a decision in 2013, and the latest ruling finds that China has largely failed to comply with the decision. China’s antidumping duties ranged from 46.6% to 73.8% for imports from Tyson Foods, Pilgrim’s Pride and Keystone.

The initial U.S. complaint filed in 2011 followed China’s imposition the year earlier of antidumping duties of up to 105.4% and anti-subsidy duties of up to 30.3% on U.S. broiler chicken products.

China's imposition of higher duties on chicken "broiler products" – which was followed by an 80% drop in American exports of those products to China – was determined to be unjustified under international trade rules by WTO in August 2013.

On Sept. 27, 2009, China's MOFCOM initiated antidumping and countervailing investigations of imports of so-called "broiler products" from the U.S. Broiler products include most chicken products, with the exception of live chickens and a few other products such as cooked and canned chicken.

MOFCOM imposed antidumping and countervailing duties on these products on Sept. 26, 2010, and Aug. 30, 2010, respectively. The antidumping duties ranged from 50.3% to 53.4% for the U.S. producers who responded to MOFCOM's investigation notice, while MOFCOM set a rate of 105.4% for "all others."

In the countervailing duty investigation, MOFCOM imposed countervailing duties ranging between 4.0% and 12.5% for the participating U.S. producers and a rate of 30.3% for "all others."

China lowered the duties in 2014 to a maximum of 73.8% and 4.2%, respectively, after WTO ruled in favor of the U.S., but USTR argued again in 2016 that China had not gone far enough to rectify its wrongdoing.