Boeing-Airbus dispute: London reaches separate agreement with Washington
In the dispute between Boeing and Airbus, the United States suspends customs surcharges on British products for four months.
© Olivier DOULIERY AFP / Archives
Text by: Agnieszka Kumor
3 min
In the dispute between Boeing and Airbus, the United States suspends customs surcharges on British products for four months.
Three questions asked about the impact of this agreement to Vincent Vicard, economist at the Center for Prospective Studies and International Information.
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RFI: The British have decided to conclude a separate agreement with the Americans in this conflict which already appears to be the longest underway before the World Trade Organization (WTO). It is a conflict that has been going on for 16 years. What do they gain by making this deal with the United States?
Vincent Vicard:
With
Brexit,
the British had removed their trade retaliatory measures vis-à-vis the United States.
What they are winning today is the reciprocal of the American side on a number of iconic products, from Scotch whiskey to Stilton cheese.
But not on all products.
So far there has been no announcement that all retaliatory measures on the American side have been abandoned.
And this also corresponds to the initial imbalance.
The United States has put in place additional tariffs on more products than the Europeans.
Retaliations of the order of $ 7 billion on the American side, and $ 4 billion on the European side.
What does the conclusion of this agreement augur for Europeans?
There is no real reason to think that this could have an impact on this subject between the Biden administration and the European Union.
There are obviously possibilities for negotiation.
But we do not know to what extent today.
By dissociating itself from the European Union on the Boeing-Airbus conflict, London intended to quickly negotiate a free trade agreement put forward by the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, as a possible advantage of Brexit. London was hoping to sign this sweeping deal as early as 2020, but the pandemic and the transition of power in the White House have delayed talks. Where are we on this other agreement?
This is, indeed, something that was announced on the British side, but much less on the American side.
On the British side, the arguments that had been put forward were to return to what they had called
"Global Britain",
that is to say to look to the world.
When leaving the European Union, Boris Johnson wanted to sign trade agreements with other major countries, and therefore with the United States.
But on the American side, we can see that there is no will to go in this direction.
After his election Joe Biden made it very clear that his administration's priority was the US economy.
And therefore not the fact of signing new trade agreements with anyone, including the United Kingdom.
The horizon for signing such an agreement, which will in any case take time to be negotiated, is not a short-term horizon.
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