In March, weeks after Biden took office, the
two sides agreed to suspend the tariffs. That
suspension, which began March 11, was to last
for four months. The agreement announced
will officially take effect July 11 and will put the
tariffs on hold for five years.
“It’s obviously a good sign — they agreed to
something,” said William Reinsch, a former U.S.
trade official who is now an analyst at the Center
for Strategic and International Studies.
The truce, he said, will add “an element of
certainty and sanity” to trans-Atlantic trade.
But Reinsch notes that the two sides “kind
of kicked the can down the road,” by leaving
unsettled some issues in the aircraft dispute,
such as whether Airbus must repay the
government subsidies it received over the
years. Instead, the U.S. said in a fact sheet, the
two sides had agreed to establish a group “to
analyze and overcome any disagreements that
may arise.’’
The deal might help solidify the duopoly of
Airbus and Boeing, which together dominate
the global market for airline jets. Both
companies have struggled recently with
declining orders and deliveries at a time when
the pandemic devastated air travel and led
airlines to cancel or delay purchases.
The agreement made clear that the United
States and the EU recognize that Boeing and
Airbus face an external threat far bigger than
each other: As part of its aggressive drive
to become the world’s dominant industrial
power, China is intent on developing its
own plane-making industry with heavy
government support.