It could have turned out much worse: In the dispute over illegal EU subsidies for the aircraft manufacturer Airbus, the US is for the time being foregoing another escalation. But there is a small pinprick for Germany.
Washington / Brussels (dpa) - The US has surprisingly waived an intended tightening of its punitive tariffs on products from Germany and other EU countries.
According to a communication from US trade representative Robert Lighthizer on Wednesday (local time), from September 1, special import duties of 25 percent will only be levied on jams from Germany and France. Additional duties on Greek cheese and biscuits from Great Britain are no longer applicable.
A proposal published by Lighthizer in June actually intended to impose additional duties of up to 100 percent on products such as beer, chocolate, olives and gin due to the ongoing dispute over subsidies for the aircraft manufacturer. The selected goods had an import value of 3.1 billion dollars (2.6 billion euros) in 2018.
Ultimately, however, only new tariffs on jam imports worth around 43 million US dollars will be levied - and tariffs on biscuits and cheese in roughly the same amount will be abolished. In addition, the tariffs that have been in place for months will not be raised as threatened.
The basis of the US punitive tariffs is a WTO ruling due to years of illegal subsidies for the aircraft manufacturer Airbus. It enables Washington to impose surcharges of up to 100 percent on goods valued at $ 7.5 billion.
For this reason, the USA had already issued punitive tariffs of 25 percent on numerous products from Europe last October. For example, wine from Germany and France, Parmesan from Italy and olive oil from Spain are affected. There is a special tax of 15 percent on aircraft imports.
The EU reacted with relief to the lack of tightening of the punitive tariff policy and appealed to Washington to press ahead with efforts to find a negotiated solution to the conflict.
If this does not succeed, the EU intends to impose new punitive tariffs on US products in return. The basis should be that WTO arbitrators have also found illegal subsidies for the Airbus competitor Boeing. The EU is therefore expecting billions of euros to be approved in the autumn.
"The current economic slowdown, and in particular its impact on air travel and the aviation sector, make it particularly urgent to resolve the dispute," commented a Commission spokeswoman. EU Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan announced that he would once again intensify his efforts.
Shortly before, Lighthizer had made a similar statement and spoke of the "start of a new process". At the same time he made it clear that the concessions made so far by the EU states and Airbus are inadequate.
They had recently announced changes to the contracts on the repayable initial investment for the long-haul A350 aircraft and were of the opinion that all WTO rules will now be complied with.
Accordingly, Airbus regretted the US decision. "Airbus trusts that Europe will react appropriately to defend its interests and the interests of all European companies and industries, including Airbus, which are affected by these tariffs," said the aircraft manufacturer.
It was initially unclear whether the changes made a decisive contribution to deterring the USA from tightening the punitive tariff policy. It is also conceivable that the public consultation procedure on the criminal customs list provided reasons not to implement the proposed changes. According to the relevant US agency, around 24,000 comments have been received since the launch on June 26th.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 200813-99-149958 / 3
Communication USTR
Comments on the penalty tariff considerations
Tweet from Phil Hogan
