Airbus faces fresh disruption as US tariff award looms
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Trade across the Atlantic faces fresh upheaval this week, with arbiters expected to grant the US a record award allowing it to slap billions of dollars of tariffs on European imports, in a long-running aircraft subsidy dispute.
The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has found both European plane maker Airbus and its US rival Boeing received billions of dollars of illegal subsidies in a pair of cases that have run for 15 years.
Both sides have threatened tariffs after the Geneva body found neither adhered fully to its findings. But the US gets the jump, as the EU will have to wait until early next year to find out what level of retaliation it can impose on Boeing.
The WTO is expected this week to reveal the amount of EU goods the US can target. Reuters sources said the tribunal is expected to award around $7.bn, a record for the 24-year-old watchdog.
EU manufacturers are already facing US tariffs on steel and aluminum and a threat from President Donald Trump to penalize EU cars and car parts. The EU has retaliated with similar measures.
The Trump administration has concluded that tariffs were effective in bringing China to the negotiating table over trade, and in convincing Japan to open its agricultural market to U.S. products. Washington is thought to be unlikely to skip the opportunity to implement tariffs in the case over aircraft subsidies.
Airbus has said this would lead to a ‘lose-lose’ trade war.