On January 20, 2010, the WTO accepted a request from China for the establishment of a WTO dispute panel to determine whether the United States violated international trade rules by imposing China-specific safeguard tariffs on imports of Chinese passenger vehicle and light truck tires. Section 421 of the Trade Act was enacted for the purpose of implementing the transitional safeguard provisions set forth in China’s WTO accession protocol in 2001, which will remain in place for 12 years, i.e., until December 2013. China argues that the Section 421 provisions violate WTO rules because they impose a narrower definition of cause of injury than that set out under China’s accession agreement.