Delivery time2023-10-21 19:05
EU demands ‘complete abolition of tariff quotas’; US calls for ‘tariff-free extension’ instead of abolition
If no agreement is reached before the end of the year, tariffs will be reinstated early next year… Joint statement: “Expect progress in two months”
US-EU summit
[워싱턴 AFP=연합뉴스. 재판매 및 DB 금지]
(Brussels = Yonhap News) Correspondent Bitna Jeong = Regarding the failure to reach a so-called ‘steel agreement’ at the EU-US summit, Bloomberg News reported on the 21st that the EU blamed the ‘lack of clarity’ on the US side. It was reported on Sunday (local time).
In an interview conducted after the summit the day before, EU Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis claimed, “The main stumbling block is the lack of clarity from the U.S. on the specific timeline and how to abolish the tariff quotas under Article 232 (of the Trade Expansion Act).” .
“Unfortunately, we have not seen a strong commitment from the United States to definitively eliminate tariffs,” he said.
“It is clear that no one wants to go back to ‘Trump’s tariffs,’” Deputy Executive Director Dombrovskis said, adding that they would consult more closely to resolve differences.
Previously, the Donald Trump administration decided to apply Article 232 of the Trade Expansion Act in March 2018 and impose tariffs of 25% on imported steel and 10% on aluminum, citing ‘national security threats’. The EU strongly opposed the move and responded with retaliatory tariffs.
The two sides agreed to maintain the application of Article 232 in the United States in 2021, the year that President Joe Biden took office, but to allow tariff-free imports of limited quantities of European steel and aluminum through the tariff quota system until the end of this year.
In addition, during the period, negotiations for the ‘Sustainable Global Steel and Aluminum Agreement’ (GSSA) were initiated, with the goal of eliminating the root cause of the steel trade dispute between the two sides and transitioning to a ‘low-carbon version of the steel industry’.
The plan is to encourage countries called ‘similarly positioned countries’ to participate in low-carbon steel reduction through GSSA, and to impose tariffs on third-party products that are overproduced due to non-market practices.
During the consultation process, the EU requested that the tariff quota system be completely abolished in order to fundamentally block the possibility of tariff revival, but the United States reportedly proposed extending the deadline instead of abolishing it.
Even with regard to how to apply the new tariff system under GSSA, the United States has been demanding a method that directly targets China, the world’s largest steel producer.
On the other hand, the EU, which has emphasized ‘World Trade Organization (WTO) integration’, is said to be passive in blatant exclusion of Chinese products.
In the end, a compromise was not found until just before the summit, and the armed conflict between Israel and the Palestinian armed faction Hamas and the issue of support for the war in Ukraine took up most of the meeting, so the announcement of a GSSA agreement was also canceled.
Accordingly, the deadline for GSSA negotiations originally set by both sides was until the 31st of this month, but it is expected that they will focus on reaching an agreement until the end of the year, when the U.S. tariff-free measure expires.
In the joint statement at the US-EU summit the previous day, both sides stated that they “look forward to continuing to advance important goals over the next two months” regarding GSSA.
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2023/10/21 19:05 Sent
2023-10-21 10:05:03
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