Phnom Penh – A China-owned special economic zone in Cambodia has denied that its firms have been fined by the United States for transhipping goods from China in a bid to dodge U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports.
US Embassy spokesman Arend Zwartjes told Reuters in an emailed statement on Wednesday that the Department of Homeland Security had inspected and fined a number of companies inside the Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone (SSEZ) for transhipping goods through it to avoid the tariffs.The spokesman did not identify any companies or say how many had been fined for avoiding the tariffs, how large the fines were, or what goods the companies had been exporting.