A final twist that could please – and a lot – Europe. Before leaving the White House to his successor, Joe Biden, Donald Trump could cancel the tariffs imposed on the European Union with a clean sweep due to the endless diatribe between Boeing and Airbus.
It reveals it The print citing industrial sources involved in the affair. According to the Turin newspaper, Trump's about-face would arise from the desire to demonstrate to the world that he is capable of mediating and diplomatically resolving a dispute that has been dragging on for years in view of a possible re-nomination for the presidency in 2024 that the current president should officially announce next January 20, the same day that Biden will take office in the White House.
Trump's possible turnaround on tariffs would have already attracted the attention of Brussels, ready to take advantage of yet another one coup de théâtre of the tycoon. Mind you, many analysts are already predicting that with the entry on the scene of Joe Biden, relations between the United States and the European Union will change radically, returning to the glories of the past. The president of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, after a telephone conversation with the president-elect wrote on Twitter that Joe Biden's arrival marks 'a new beginning' for the global partnership between the EU and the US. The point, in this case, lies in the timing. As he points out The print, undertaking negotiations with the new administration would mean waiting at least six to eight months before being able to resolve the issue, a wait that would entail further costs for EU countries. If, on the other hand, Trump were to autonomously cancel the tariffs, the positive repercussions for the Old Continent would be immediate.
We also recall that after the tariffs introduced by the EU against American goods in response to those from posts by the Americans on European goods for public aid to Airbus, the EU trade commissioner, Valdis Dombrovskis, in an interview with Bloomberg, he judged "possible" an agreement by 20 January next, reiterating the proposal presented to the US to remove the 4 billion dollars tariffs imposed by the EU on American goods if Washington does the same on the 7,5 billion dollars tariffs introduced previously.
The trade dispute between Washington and Brussels was born in 2004, but reached its breaking point in 2018, under the Trump presidency. At the basis of the dispute are the state aid that both the United States and the European Union have granted respectively to Boeing (US) and Airbus (French). In 2019, after obtaining authorization from the World Trade Organization (WTO), the US imposed tariffs worth a total of 7,5 billion dollars on imports from the EU as compensation for the subsidies that Brussels has paid to Airbus. The European Union, in turn, last November 10 imposed new tariffs on a series of products made in the USA for a total value of 4 billion dollars. Among these, various agricultural and food products.
According to data from the US Office of Commerce, in September 2020 trade between the United States and the EU recorded a drop of -12,7% compared to the same month of the previous year. The Italian figure is even heavier: -18,1% compared to September 2019, despite the fact that local products have been partially saved from the war on duties.
