Posted on 04/17/2019 7:18:53 AM PDT by Olog-hai
The European Union has drawn up a list of $20 billion worth of U.S. products it could tax in an escalating feud over plane industry subsidies, the EU’s executive commission said Wednesday.
The commission said the EU could tax the products, which range from aircraft parts to frozen fish, from early next year in retaliation for U.S. financial support to Boeing that it says hurt Europe’s Airbus.
The extent of the EU punitive duties will depend on a ruling by the World Trade Organization. Earlier in this dispute, the EU sought permission to target $12 billion worth of U.S. products. Businesses and stakeholders have through May to give feedback on the proposed EU tariffs. […]
EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström said the EU wants to avoid “tit-for-tat” action in the long-running dispute and that the world’s biggest trading bloc “remains open for discussions with the U.S., provided these are without preconditions and aim at a fair outcome.” …
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Typical EU thinking: It's okay for us to subsidize Airbus, but you better not do it on companies in the US. This is the result of past administrations, Republican and Democrat, who lacked the stones to stand up to this kind of extortion. Time to take a stand on gov't subsidies.
They were actually helping the EU become what it is. Make no mistake about that.
Yeah right. They’ve tried this for years.....ie making lame claims that Boeing gets subsidies whenever the US has pointed out Airbus’ massive subsidies. The WTO has never agreed with them - But has ruled Airbus got illegal subsidies several times.
“They’ve tried this for years.....ie making lame claims that Boeing gets subsidies”
If I recall correctly, the EU considers a U.S. defense contract awarded to Boeing a subsidy, and they use that to justify their own subsidies.
Yes they try that but of course a defense contract is not a subsidy and governments have perfectly legitimate national security reasons for favoring companies which deal with classified technologies to be domestic companies.
The Yurps are perfectly free to do the same. Oh wait! Since the Yurps spend next to nothing on their military forces I guess Airbus cannot get those lucrative contracts. Gosh, maybe they should pony up the cash to pay for their own defense at a reasonable level.
Anyway, now you see the reason why the US keeps beating their brains in at the WTO.
The US needs to stop subsidizing NATO.
That needs to be our response here.
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