[GENEVA] Turkey has lodged a complaint against additional US duties on steel and aluminium at World Trade Organization, the international trade court said Monday.

US President Donald Trump earlier this month announced on Twitter that he had doubled steel and aluminium tariffs on Turkey amid a row over an American pastor held for two years on terror charges.

"Turkey claims that the measures are inconsistent with a number of provisions of the WTO's Agreement on Safeguards and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 1994," said a statement on the WTO's website.

The first stage in the process is a request for bilateral consultations to attempt to resolve the dispute. It can take years to resolve disputes if WTO trade judges become involved.

The two NATO members are at odds over Turkey's detention of American pastor Andrew Brunson.

The announcement of the tariffs on August 10 caused the Turkish lira to crash nearly 20 per cent, and prompted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to claim his country was victim of a "political plot" and an "economic war".

Turkey subsequently hiked tariffs on imports of several key US products such as rice, hard alcohol, leaf tobacco, cosmetics and cars.

AFP