US Trade Secretary Gina Raimondo and US Trade Representative Katherine Tai announced on Tuesday that they have reached an agreement with London to end the punitive tariffs on British steel and aluminum that were imposed in 2018 by the former President Donald Trump.

"This critical agreement will not only help ensure the long-term viability of our steel and aluminum industries, protect American jobs, but it will also lift retaliatory tariffs on more than 500 million in US exports to the UK, including spirits, various agricultural products and consumer goods," they said in a joint statement.

"This is great news and a welcome boost for our steel and aluminum industries," British Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted.

Concretely, this new agreement will make it possible to import “historic and sustainable volumes of British steel and aluminum products without the application of the tariffs of section 232”, detailed the American officials.

The announcement was made following a two-day visit to the United States by British Minister for International Trade Anne-Marie Trevelyan.

Americans and British announced in January the launch of negotiations to put an end to this dispute inherited from the Trump era and which has polluted relations between the two countries for nearly four years.

The United Kingdom was among many countries that were imposed additional tariffs of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum in June 2018, in the midst of a trade war.

If the Biden administration had already reached agreements with the European Union in October, then with Japan in early February, a negotiated solution was long overdue for London.

This agreement will thus make it possible to improve relations between the two countries which had already settled, shortly after the arrival of Joe Biden at the White House, their other major dispute which concerned subsidies to aircraft manufacturers Boeing and Airbus.

British Minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan said she hoped that this agreement would make it possible "to move forward" and to "focus on deepening our flourishing commercial relations with the United States".

However, it pales in comparison to the great free trade agreement that Boris Johnson wants.

The signing of a bilateral treaty with the United States was one of the priorities of the British after Brexit, effective since January 1, 2021.

But while the administration of Donald Trump (2017-2021) was willing to enter into a bilateral agreement with London and even conducted a series of negotiations, the Biden administration let the process die.

In addition, the United States has made a potential agreement conditional on strict compliance with the peace agreement in Northern Ireland.

"Some time"

On Tuesday, Ms Trevelyan acknowledged that London had been seeking a deal with Washington for "some time" and added that her government was not giving up.

The British minister stressed that what was at stake was not only to eliminate tariffs, but also to respond to the need to "build a 21st century trading relationship between two great nations that have common values".

For her part, Ms Tai called for being "creative" when it comes to trade tools, hinting that a deal was not on the cards.

Earlier on Tuesday, Marjorie Chorlins, vice president for European affairs at the American Chamber of Commerce -- the body that defends American businesses -- said there was "a shared desire to find ways to improve the relationship".

"I don't think it will be through a free trade agreement, at least not anytime soon," she said, however.

Ms Trevelyan and Ms Tai said they would continue their business dialogue "in April, in Scotland" this time.

"I do not want to prejudge or predetermine (...) where these dialogues will lead us", nevertheless tempered Katherine Tai.

© 2022 AFP