President Biden announced a breakthrough in the long-running U.S.-EU dispute over airliner subsidies on Tuesday: Suspension of retaliatory tariffs on each other’s products for five years beginning in July. The overall $4 billion in EU tariffs included duties on $1.4 billion of U.S. ag exports from frozen seafood to cotton, wheat, tobacco and alcohol.
The truce followed an agreement on March 11 by the trading partners to suspend the tariffs for four months while negotiations continued. “Both the U.S. and EU agreed to suspend our tariffs for five years and we committed to ensuring a level playing field for our companies and our workers,” said Biden in Brussels for a summit with EU leaders.
“This is welcome news for wheat farm families in the northern and central Plains,” said the National Association of Wheat Growers and export promoter U.S. Wheat Associates. The wheat group’s Katherine Tai said the five-year suspension “resolves a long-standing trade irritant in the U.S.-EU relationship.” The two sides will continue to discuss fair-play in aircraft. Each side won WTO cases that alleged the other gave unfair subsidies to airplane manufacturers Boeing and Airbus and each had WTO permission to impose retaliatory tariffs.
A White House fact sheet on the aircraft agreement is available here.