The length of the list of United States products the European Commission released on Wednesday (17 April) for governments and businesses to consider as possible targets for retaliatory tariffs appeared surprisingly long to some trade observers. The list was released in response to the WTO’s recent finding that Washington had …
EU FTAs & bilateral ties
Member states want to be consulted ahead of any EU-US negotiation suspension
The Council’s negotiating directives to the European Commission aim to ease the way towards negotiations with the United States on elimination of tariffs on goods and on conformity assessment. But will they make life easier for transatlantic negotiators? Not really. Member states mainly made amendments to the mandate on elimination …
Week in Brussels: Russian WTO steel case against EU, procurement reciprocity, Korean labour
China and EU-US trade relations dominated the news this week. Here’s a selection of what else happened. EU to face new Russian WTO complaint over steel anti-dumping duties This week in Geneva, Russia requested a panel in a dispute filed in February 2017 against the EU’s anti-dumping duties on cold-rolled …
Cambodian rice producers sue European Union over rice safeguards
In January 2019, the European Union reintroduced restrictive quotas on imports of rice from Cambodia and Myanmar following a complaint from Italy that these were harming its own rice growers. Cambodian rice farmers won’t just let that pass. So-called Indica rice from the two countries is now subject to a …
In brief: EU ambassadors agree to adopt EU US negotiation mandates
It’s not entirely clear France is on board plans to greenlight negotiations on goods trade liberalisation with the United States. But after redrafting the text tabled by the European Commission last January to accommodate the French, capitals are now ready to go ahead with giving the commission the green light …
Blog: Are Airbus-related US tariffs revenge for Boeing or standard operating procedure?
“Maybe it’s just another opportunity for President Trump to impose tariffs”, Chad Bown from the Peterson Institute of Economics tweeted in reference to the US’s decision to table tariffs on billions of Euros’ worth of European products. Robert McDougall, a former Canadian trade diplomat, retorted: “The announcement and eventual imposition …
China ready to discuss overhaul of WTO subsidy rules
“Negotiations were difficult but ultimately fruitful”, concluded Donald Tusk after Tuesday’s European Union-China summit in Brussels. The two sides achieved their main objective for their meeting, namely to come up with a joint statement that is meaningful enough to EU capital and commits both sides to specific actions. “In today’s …
Week in Brussels: Australia and New Zealand FTAs, Cambodian textiles, US-Japan-EU trilateral
This week was dominated by news on European trade defence policy and by a shift in sentiment in Britain over a customs union with the EU – with ramifications for the Department for International Trade. Other bits of news below. EU-Australia negotiations: third round The EU and Australia held a …
EU anti-dumping policy: Less defensive, more offensive
There has been a lot of talk about EU trade defence policy recently. The focus is on the EU’s recent steel safeguard measures. In Brussels and some member states such as France, Italy, and increasingly in Germany, the public discussion focuses on the ‘defence’ aspect of the EU’s trade remedies …
EU sues India and Turkey at WTO over tariffs and intellectual property violations
The European Union is suing India over recent tariff increases above its bound rates in the World Trade Organization. Brussels is also filing a case against Turkey due to what the EU thinks is WTO-inconsistent treatment of its pharmaceutical companies. India tariffs Since 2014, India has been gradually increasing import …
