The EU imposes sanctions on US products but opens its hand to Biden to end the tariff war

Assembly of part of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner in South Carolina (United States) .Randall Hill / Reuters

Brussels does not want to wait for Joe Biden to take office in January 2021 and will impose tariffs on the United States amounting to 3.4 billion euros from today in retaliation for the aid granted to Boeing.

The European Commission received this Monday the support of the Twenty-seven to publish the list of products that will be levied with taxes of between 15% and 25%.

Even so, Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis reached out to reach an agreement to end the tariff war between the two blocs.

"Now we have the opportunity to restart our trans-Atlantic cooperation," he said.

The EU waited for the end of the US electoral process to close, at least for now, one of the folders that has most poisoned transatlantic trade relations.

The conflict crossed by the illegal subsidies of both blocs to their aeronautical giants has ended with sanctions on both sides.

The United States has applied tariffs amounting to 6.9 billion euros on European products for a year.

And since this Tuesday, Europe punishes a list of North American goods with levies that reach an amount of 3,400 million.

Both amounts were set by the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The EU tried at all costs to avoid opening a tariff war.

The Executive of Jean-Claude Juncker, first, and Ursula von der Leyen, later, offered Trump an agreement to leave those tariff duties without applying.

After the council of ministers, Dombrovskis, in charge of the Commerce portfolio, lamented the "lack of progress" of the Trump Administration.

"We can confirm that the European Union will exercise its rights this Tuesday and we will impose the countermeasures that the WTO granted us with respect to Boeing," he announced.

EU partners are convinced that the conflict will no longer be resolved with Trump and that it could take time to be addressed by Biden, despite the fact that Brussels has already contacted the transition team of the US president-elect.

The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, warned in an interview on

that "the Democratic Party also has a not inconsiderable protectionist streak."

"I do not think that tomorrow we will find ourselves in the idyllic situation of the Biden Administration canceling the Trump Administration tariffs," Borrell said.

However, it did predict a different "approach", more in line with the acceptance of multilateral rules.

Trade ministers discussed the regulation prepared by the European Commission to implement the tariffs and the list of products on which it would apply.

And they decided to green light both legal documents.

The list has been configured in four large blocks of products.

The worst hit sector is aircraft, with tariffs of 1.8 billion dollars (1.525 million euros), 44% of the total.

Brussels has listed several Boeing aircraft models, although the two worst hit are the 787-9 and 787-10.

Industrial goods (29%) will also be taxed, such as equipment for casinos, video games, billiards or tractors;

agricultural goods (18%), such as tobacco, nuts, nuts, seeds or sweet potato, and food products (9%), such as spirits, sauces, soups, syrups, chocolate or coffee extract, as published in the

.

Dombrovskis maintained that the list tried to reproduce on a North American scale the sanctions adopted in his day by Trump against European products, including those from the Spanish countryside.

However, the ministers are no strangers to the new winds blowing in Washington.

Nor to the opportunity open to them to end the tariff war, which the current US president even threatened to take further by punishing German cars hiding behind national security reasons.

During the

issues have only piled up, so the agenda is broad.

That "to-do" list, Dombrovskis noted, includes reform of the WTO, climate change or the technology sector.

"There are great expectations and hope that the American presidential elections will lead to a return to multilateral commitment in trade and that it will allow us to overcome past conflicts," said the German Minister of Economy, Peter Altmaier, before the Council of Ministers.

The head of Industry, Commerce and Tourism of Spain, Reyes Maroto, stated in a note that the measures adopted by Brussels have as "main objective to convince the United States to return to the negotiation" and avoid a "commercial escalation".