BISMARCK, N.D. – U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp today announced that the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) is bringing a World Trade Organization (WTO) agriculture compliance case against China for the second time this year – this time, seeking to hold the country accountable for failing to meet market access commitments to American wheat, corn, and rice growers.

Heitkamp has long fought to guarantee North Dakota farmers have fair access to China. In September, she joined U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to announce an earlier compliance case to hold China accountable for over-subsidizing its domestic crops.

"Today we're again standing up to hold China accountable for cheating North Dakota farmers," said Heitkamp. "When China or any other country cheats on a trade agreement, they make it harder for North Dakota wheat and corn farmers to access markets and get fair value for our state's top-notch crops. This is the second time the U.S. Trade Representative has brought an agricultural compliance case against China this year, and that's good news for North Dakota farmers and rural communities - especially when commodities prices are already challenging."

The WTO complaint today charges that China’s opaque and unpredictable tariff-rate quotas for wheat, corn, and rice fail to live up to the country’s WTO commitments and undermine market access for U.S. producers. China would have imported as much as $3.5 billion in additional crops last year alone had it fairly administered its tariff-rate quotas, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

North Dakota – an agricultural state that depends on exports – was the top wheat producer in the U.S. in 2015 and is a growing producer of corn, meaning the state’s producers are heavily impacted when China limits market access or over-subsidizes its domestically produced crops. The U.S. Trade Representative’s enforcement challenge aims to hold China to its trade agreements and level the playing field so that American farmers have fair access to the market.

As a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture and Ranking Member on Subcommittee on Rural Development and Energy, Heitkamp has worked to expand market access for North Dakota farmers. Earlier this year, Heitkamp called on U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman to protect North Dakota grain growers from unfair treatment, after a report she requested demonstrated that Canada is segregating North Dakota grain and offering unfair prices to U.S. producers at Canadian elevators.