President Donald Trump on Tuesday lashed out at the EU, vowing to slap tariffs on billions in imports over subsidies to the aviation giant Airbus, suddenly escalating a transatlantic skirmish that is more than a decade old.
Trump’s twitter outburst rattled a fragile truce between the EU and the United States. President Donald Trump had sparked outrage in Europe last year by imposing steep duties on steel and aluminum and threatening new ones on autos.
“The World Trade Organization finds that the European Union subsidies to Airbus has adversely impacted the United States, which will now put Tariffs on $11 Billion of EU products!” Trump tweeted.
“The EU has taken advantage of the US on trade for many years. It will soon stop!”
Trump’s remarks were likely to raise the temperature for US and EU negotiators, who have been meeting since last year ahead of proposed trade talks to resolve the dispute.
The threatened US tariffs are in response to subsidies received by aircraft maker Airbus and target a host of European products including helicopters, aircraft parts and gouda cheese.
Source: Guardian Newspaper
