Airbus: US imposes punitive tariffs on EU, Trump rejoices

The United States announced on Wednesday that it was going to hit $ 7.5 billion worth of punitive tariffs from European products, only hours after winning a "big win" at the WTO in the interminable Airbus subsidy affair.

Customs taxes will be imposed from 18 October: 10% on aircraft imported from the European Union and 25% on other products, the list of which is to be published later in the day by the US Trade Representative ( USTR).

Wednesday, after 15 years of legal battle, the World Trade Organization has authorized Washington to take record sanctions, finding that the European aircraft manufacturer had received subsidies undue.

This is the heaviest sanction ever granted by the Organization.

Additional tariffs amount to $ 7.5 billion, a USTR service official said.

The latter, however, was not able to say how much would represent the rates on aircraft. He also said that it was a question of taxing aircraft and not "plane parts".

The US official stressed that this decision was intended to put an end to the subsidies granted to the European manufacturer.

He further warned that products from all member countries were likely to be affected, believing that they should collectively take responsibility, contrary to claims in Britain.

For all that, he assured that the United States was always ready to negotiate.

Earlier, Donald Trump called the decision "a big victory for the United States", at a joint press conference with his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinisto, whose country currently chairs the European Union.

Even before the US decision, EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström said that in case of new US tariffs, "the EU will have no option but to do the same thing". However, she reiterated her "readiness to reach a fair settlement" with the United States.

In Paris, the French Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire had, him, estimated that the United States would make "an economic and political mistake" if they decided to impose tariff sanctions, and had called for a "resolution to amicably ", especially" as China strengthens its aerospace industry ".

Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury also called for a "negotiated solution" in the 15-year-old conflict between Airbus and Boeing through their states.

In a statement, the US manufacturer Boeing said that "Airbus can still avoid these tariff measures entirely by fully complying with its obligations." "We hope that will finally be the case," he added.

In a mirror proceeding, the WTO is expected in the spring to allow the EU to impose tariffs as well in response to undue subsidies from the US government to Boeing.

At less than one less than the expected date of Brexit, the UK said in a statement that "it should not be subject" of possible US sanctions against the EU and said he was looking for to obtain from the WTO confirmation that it was in accordance with the rules of the organization in the Airbus case.

Decision to come

The decision announced Wednesday by the WTO is part of a dispute over aid paid to the European aircraft manufacturer, by France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom. The WTO has ruled some of these aids illegal.

Since then, the EU considers that it has brought its aid into line with the rules of international trade, and has obtained from the WTO that a new group of experts is examining the issue. No decision is expected before the end of the year.

The United States, for its part, judged that the EU had not complied and had asked the WTO to set an amount of sanctions.

The legal battle between Airbus and Boeing at the WTO began 15 years ago when Washington declared a 1992 US-European agreement governing subsidies in the aviation sector obsolete.

The United States fired first in 2004, accusing the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Spain of granting illegal subsidies to support the production of a series of Airbus products.

A year later, the EU claimed that Boeing had also received billions of dollars in prohibited subsidies from various branches of the US government.

The two cases then entered a legal quagmire, with each party partially successful after a long series of appeals and counter-appeals.