Trade dispute: Higher EU tariffs on US goods are valid from Friday

Jeans, motorcycles, peanut butter: The EU is reacting to us tariffs on steel and aluminium with punitive charges. Goods worth 2.8 billion euros are to be occupied.

Trade dispute: Higher EU tariffs on US goods are valid from Friday

The agreed EU tariffs on US products will apply from Friday this week. That was shared by European Commission. In this way, United States community responds to levy on steel and aluminium products imposed by US President Donald Trump.

Since beginning of June, imports of EU are due to tariffs of 25 per cent for steel and ten percent for aluminium. This is contrary to rules of World Trade Organisation from EU's point of view. The EU additional customs duties are now to be raised in a first step to annual imports from USA in equivalent of 2.8 billion. In addition to steel products, customs duties should also be applied to goods such as bourbon whisky, peanut butter, Harley-Davidson motorcycles and Levi's jeans. The planned additional duty on se products is expected to be 25 percent.

EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström said, "We didn't want to get into this situation." But because of unilateral decision of United States, European Union has no choice. If US government decides to take back duties, EU measures will also be gone, said Malmström. All 28 EU countries agreed to EU Commission's plans a week ago.

China and Russia also impose customs duties

The EU's plans have not yet been completed. In a second step, imports worth anor 3.6 billion euro could be used with customs duties. The two-step principle exists because new US tariffs can be divided into two categories. On one, re are new levies on products that have not been increasingly exported to United States, and on or products that have recently increased to US.

Customs duties on second category are initially to be officially challenged by EU to World Trade Organisation before imposing additional duties on its part. Maybe y would only come in three years. Customs duties are designed to compensate for damage that EU is likely to incur as a result of US customs duties.

For consumers in Europe, additional tariffs on US products could lead to price increases.

The United States is also in a trade dispute with China. On Friday, US president Donald Trump had imposed additional tariffs of 25 percent on about 1,100 products from China worth 50 billion US dollars. The government in Beijing n brought tariffs on US goods worth also 50 billion dollars on way. Russia also announced additional duties on selected imports from United States.

Date Of Update: 21 June 2018, 12:02