United States - Certain Measures Affecting Imports of Poultry from China

On 17 April 2009, China requested consultations with the United States concerning certain measures taken by the United States affecting the import of poultry products from China. The measure primarily at issue is Section 727 of the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009, which effectively prohibits the establishment or implementation of any measures that would allow Chinese poultry to be imported into the United States because it denies the use of any funding by USDA for this purpose. China considers that the United States, through Section 727 and any closely related measures, is in violation, at a minimum, of Articles I:1 and XI:1 of GATT 1994 and Article 4.2 of the Agriculture Agreement. In addition, China also specifies that, although it does not believe that the US measure or any closely related measures at issue constitute sanitary and phytosanitary measures within the meaning of the SPS Agreement, if it were demonstrated that any such measure is a SPS measure, China would consider such measure also to be in violation of US obligations under various provisions of the SPS Agreement.