Wednesday, 17 April, 2019

EU To Reveal Max Trade Retaliation List Versus US

EU To Reveal Max Trade Retaliation List Versus US

By David Thomas

LONDON (MNI) – The EU Commission is poised to publish next Wednesday a list of counter tariffs to US moves earlier this week to impose USD 11 billion of tariffs on EU exports.

An EU official said that the list would be a “max-list”, entailing that only a subset of what is on the list of U.S. goods that could potentially be subject to tariffs is likely to become subject to them.

EU officials have said that the threatened EU tariffs would be “similar” to the U.S. Euro 11bn tariff threat, suggesting that the size of the counter measures will be on the same scale.

The U.S. move came in anticipation of a looming World Trade Organisation ruling that Airbus subsidies did cause material harm to Boeing’s commercial standing. Neither side plans to impose the tariffs that have been threatened until the WTO issues its rulings. The WTO is also expected to rule that U.S. tax breaks for Boeing caused similar harm to Airbus, although that ruling is not anticipated until early next year.

Meanwhile, EU ministers will approve the launch of EU-U.S. trade talks next week, chiefly in the area of automobile trade, despite objections from France which has made clear it will be voting against starting negotiations.