China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) expressed a strong protest against a United States preliminary decision to impose duties ranging from 10.9 percent to 30.6 percent on OCTG imports from China. A spokesman of the MOC said that the way the U.S. defined as a kind of state subsidies no matter OCTG producers bought round bar from state-owned or private suppliers was wrong, which resulted in higher subsidy rates and would "greatly hurt" the interests of Chinese enterprises. He stressed that the United States should stop new trade protectionism actions before the end of 2010 and shun trade remedies as the government promised in the G20 summit in London.