News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Monday, April 28, 2025
With the United States failing to deliver changes to Chinese subsidies and state-owned enterprise practices in the small trade ‘deal’ it is about to sign with Beijing, Washington appears keener to cooperate with other countries to address more ‘structural’ issues with the Asian behemoth. The EU and US are also …
This week was mainly about the EU getting back into business mode. The main focus has been on preparing the ground for trade negotiations starting next month with the United Kingdom and managing transatlantic relations. More below. Commissioner Breton toys with idea of a data localisation obligations for business data …
That was a pretty lonely affair for France. The European Parliament’s very last plenary last session in Strasbourg this week was dedicated to one of the most difficult and high-profile trade topics at the moment: transatlantic trade relations. More precisely the topic was the threat of new tariffs from Washington …
It’s been an eventful week on trade – with a deepening WTO crisis, some movement on agriculture, continued uncertainty over the EU Vietnam FTA ratification…. New low in WTO and transatlantic trade relations This week has provided fodder for around-the-clock quotation-chasing media as developments shifted by the day, if not …
United States aims to ‘reset’ transatlantic trade relations ring hollow. The US is moving ahead with further import duties on EU products. It is not interested in an OECD agreement on digital taxation. And it has definitely pulled the plug on the World Trade Organization’s Appellate Body. The EU for …
The European Union was largely rebuffed in a second compliance report it requested regarding subsidies to Airbus today at the World Trade Organization in Geneva. US tariffs introduced against the EU in retaliation for these subsidies are already in place. These tariffs were authorised in October by a WTO arbitrator …
The European Union is still waiting for some form of official announcement on whether the White House will order import duties to be applied to autos and auto parts – or whether it will, as anticipated by most observers on both sides of the Pond – postpone the decision and …
Airbus, transatlantic This week in European Union trade politics will be dominated yet again by ‘Airbus tariffs’ and the general state of transatlantic trade relations. Today, the Dispute Settlement Body of the World Trade Organization is set to authorise retaliation by the United States after it won its case against …
Perhaps the many behind-the-scenes meetings held by officials, experts and lawyers on the sides of the World Trade Organization’s Public Forum this week in Geneva will have been worth the time, energy and travel expenses. One cannot exclude some movement in the coming weeks over the organisation’s Appellate Body impasse, …
The perception in Brussels is that the approach taken in the choice and level of tariffs by the US Trade Representative to hit the European Union following yesterday’s WTO arbitrator’s green light in the Airbus affair is relatively measured. Accordingly, the EU’s own response to the tariffs, too, is expected …
