US President Joe Biden and the EU will agree a long term truce in the long-running Airbus-Boeing dispute Tuesday, as they try push past their own disputes and turn their focus onto a rising China. Negotiated in marathon talks by EU and US officials, the truce will be formalised in Biden’s summit with European leaders Charles Michel and Ursula von der Leyen, who are hosting him in Brussels.
On condition of anonymity, a European source close to the situation told AFP, “We have established a good deal that provides us the time to find a long-term solution.”
Biden and Von der Leyen, the European Commission’s head, had postponed retaliatory tariffs in the subsidy dispute between rival planemakers in March. European cheese and wine, as well as American what and nicotine, were among the products targeted by the sanctions. According to sources, the cease-fire would last five years, giving adequate time to end the conflict while taking into account China’s developing aviation strength.
Biden’s two-hour layover at EU headquarters, sandwiched between a NATO summit and a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva, is meant to signal a clear contrast from Donald Trump’s turbulent four years in office.
Biden wants to “defuse the problems… in order to focus on his priority, China,” according to Eric Maurice of the Schuman Foundation, following the transatlantic relationship’s crisis under Trump, who saw the EU as a bitter economic foe.
The Europeans are attempting to clear the slate of trade conflicts in order to establish a more favourable period in which they can together address other concerns such as limiting big tech and dealing with Russia.
Both sides had been “sweating” to find common ground on trade issues before of the summit, according to a European official, indicating that Trump-era conflicts may soon be over.
Another unresolved issue is Trump’s 25% tariff on steel and 10% tariff on aluminums, which he imposed on Europe and other close allies in 2018. Counter-tariffs on 2.8 billion Euros of iconic US imports, including bourbon whiskey, denim, and Harley-Davidson motorcycles, were imposed by Brussels.
Trump and Brussels also quarreled over taxing big tech platforms after France led a group of several EU states by hitting Google, Facebook and others with a special levy. Washington fought back with a wave of counter-tariffs that Biden has frozen, as both sides await a worldwide deal on how to better tax big tech companies.
US diplomats have been reluctant to write an actual end date for solving that battle, with the steel tariffs politically popular in key constituencies for Biden in the US.
