The United States will impose tariffs of up to 12.97 percent on China-made seamless steel tubes, a decision blasted by China as protectionism as trade disputes between the two countries continue to grow.

In a preliminary ruling, the US Department of Commerce said on Wednesday that a levy ranging from 11.06 percent to 12.97 percent will be slapped on imports of seamless steel tubes from China.

It said the imports of the tubes from China soared 131.52 percent from 2006 to US$382 million by 2008. They are used in industrial piping system to carry water, steam, petrochemicals, chemicals, oil products and natural gas.

Yao Jian, a spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce in China, retorted yesterday the US abused its own trade relief measures.

"These seemingly fair trade measures in fact are abuses of trade relief measures which are intended to protect the domestic economy," Yao said. "If the whole world followed the US and took similar measures, what kind of picture will that be?"

The number of US anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases against Chinese goods rose by more than 50 percent last year to 23, with their value jumping by eight times to US$7.6 billion.

Xue Jun, an analyst at the CITIC Securities Co, warned that "Chinese companies should be well prepared to meet the challenges (of protectionism) this year."

The US will give a final ruling on May 10, and until then importers will be required to post bonds to cover the higher duties.

Earlier this month, the US announced it would levy anti-dumping duties of up to 231.4 percent on gift-wrapping ribbons from the Chinese mainland and Taiwan. This was seen as a retaliation against China's decision to impose tariffs on the imports of chicken products from US.

Sino-US trade tensions have continued to escalate and spread to other industries since last September when the US decided to impose punitive tariffs on Chinese tires.