U.S. maintains 15% tariff on Airbus, EU hopes to resolve trade conflict

　　China News Service, August 13th. According to the "Central News Agency" report, on the 12th local time, the U.S. government stated that it would still maintain a 15% tariff on the large civil aircraft of Airbus, Europe’s largest aircraft manufacturer, and a 25% tariff on other European goods. . The EU subsequently called on both sides to make greater efforts to resolve trade conflicts.

The picture shows the Airbus A350-900 aircraft landing.

　　According to reports, U.S. Trade Representative Lightheizer stated on the 12th that the European Union has so far failed to take the necessary actions to follow World Trade Organization (WTO) decisions. Washington will start a new process to reach a long-term solution.

　　The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) pointed out that the list of tariffs on European goods worth 7.5 billion US dollars will be adjusted to remove parts of Greek and British goods and replace them with equivalent German and French goods.

　　At the same time, the Office of the United States Trade Representative ignored the calls of EU officials and US lawmakers and did not reduce EU tariffs on food, wine and spirits, but it did not impose tariffs on imported goods such as vodka, gin and beer, as previously stated.

　　Airbus pointed out that they "deeply regretted" that the United States maintained its tariffs on Airbus aircraft.

　　EU officials said that the United States does not increase tariff rates, which will help prevent further increases in trade conflicts. He called on the two major economies to work harder to resolve trade conflicts. The official said that EU Trade Executive Hogan will still actively negotiate with Lightheizer to discuss a solution.

　　The US-Europe aviation subsidy dispute has a long history. In 2004, the United States filed a lawsuit with the WTO, accusing the European Union of providing illegal subsidies to Airbus in various forms. The European Union subsequently sued the WTO to provide illegal subsidies to Boeing from the US government. The WTO has ruled successively that both the United States and the European Union have problems providing illegal subsidies to their respective aviation companies.

　　According to the WTO ruling and official authorization on the Airbus subsidy case, the United States formally imposed additional tariffs on US$7.5 billion of EU products exported to the United States on October 18, 2019. Among them, a 10% tariff is imposed on EU large civil aircraft. On February 14, 2020, the Office of the United States Trade Representative announced that the additional tariff imposed by the United States on the import of large civil aircraft from the European Union has been raised from the previous 10% to 15%.