Aid to Boeing: EU officially authorized to tax American products
A Lufthansa Boeing 747 at Twente airport in the Netherlands on July 24, 2020. Vincent JANNINK / ANP / AFP
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It is now official, the WTO, international arbitrator of trade disputes, authorizes the European Union in turn to tax American imports in retaliation for public aid paid by Washington to Boeing.
A decision that comes a year after a similar authorization, this time in favor of the United States, which denounced undue aid to the European manufacturer Airbus.
A 16-year-old soap opera of which we could finally see the epilogue.
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The
WTO's decision
to allow Europeans to tax just under $ 4 billion in US imports was an open secret.
The information had leaked ten days ago in Geneva, where the World Trade Organization is based.
And above all, the Europeans did not wait for its formalization to start drawing up a long list of products likely to be targeted by these sanctions.
Among them, airliners made in the United States but also tractors, sweet potatoes, peanuts, tobacco, ketchup and even Pacific salmon.
A list whose disclosure within eight days of the US presidential election is anything but good news for the Trump administration, even if it is hard to see the European Union acting before the November 3 election.
In any case, as soon as the WTO was announced, Washington hastened to assert its desire to find a negotiated solution with Brussels.
Washington could, for example, if Airbus repay the billions of dollars in aid received, give up taxing French wine.
But in this 16-year-old dispute, France is not the only one concerned, the Commission will indeed have to consult all 27 EU member states before any agreement.
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