A trade row has broken out between the US and China over a decision by Washington to impose punitive duties on Chinese-made tyres.

Beijing has accused the US of "grave" protectionism and is threatening to strike back with action against US exports of car parts and poultry.

Relations between the two countries deteriorated after America's President Obama approved an increased duty of 35 per cent on all imports of passenger vehicle and light truck tyres from China for a period of three years.

He agreed to the increase after union leaders claimed that imports of cheap Chinese tyres had tripled over the last five years, costing more than 5,000 jobs in the US.

China condemned the decision with its Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu accusing the US of protectionism. "The United States failed to honour its commitments made at the G20 financial summit and abused trade remedy measures, which is grave protectionism and will undermine China-US economic and trade ties," said Ms Jiang.

China's Commerce Ministry announced a probe into America's exports of car products and chicken meat to China, in response to complaints from domestic industries.

"The Commerce Ministry has started an anti-dumping and anti-subsidy examination of some imported US car products and chicken meat," it said.

"Recently, the Commerce Ministry has received word from domestic industries indicating that the above mentioned products had entered our nation's markets via dumping, subsidies and other unfair trade means.

"This impacted domestic industries and the Commerce Ministry was requested we launch an anti-dumping and anti-subsidy probe."

It gave no further details on the exact products involved or the alleged trade violations.

China was already angered earlier in the week when Washington imposed tariffs on pipes used in the petroleum industry.

On Sunday, Xinhua, the state news agency quoted experts as saying that 100,000 Chinese jobs could be lost as a result of the US tariffs and that China's tyre industry would be worse off by $1 billion (£0.60 billion).

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