Transport Online – US and EU settle steel tariff conflict
BRUSSELS/WASHINGTON/ROME – The European Union and the United States have resolved their lingering cut over US steel and aluminum tariffs. An imminent increase in European counter-levies, for example on motorcycles from Harley-Davidson and jeans from Levi Strauss, is therefore out of the question. The deal should better arm both superpowers against the oversupply of steel, especially from China.
Exports from the European Union come to the US, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo reported. Responsible European Commissioner Valdis Dombrovski has confirmed that the trade conflict has “paused” and both trade blocs will work together to realize sustainable production of steel and aluminum worldwide.
The conflict stems from the period when President Donald Trump was still in power in the US. In the spring of 2018, it includes import duties of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum from all countries in the world. As a result, Brussels established counter-levies on, among other things, motorcycles and jeans. In May, the EU suspended a significant increase in punitive levies until early December.
Those charges will continue to apply. It is not easy for Trump’s successor Joe Biden, legally and politically, to get rid of the punitive charges. They were under the guise of national security on the grounds that cheap imports would kill American industry.
Dombrovskis warned earlier that an agreement is needed by early November. Otherwise it would no longer happen to go through all the internal decision-making processes in the EU before the set deadline. He said that Biden and von der Leyen will further explain the agreement in Rome on Sunday.
The European Commission has always kept Trump’s tariffs strong. The US wants a proposal in the negotiations. The Americans suggested linking tariffs to quotas. A quantity of steel and aluminum may cross the border at a favorable rate, but everything above that has to deal with higher import costs at customs.