EU conclusion for sanctions against US steel tariffs
After the Bush administration implemented steel tariffs of upto 30% in March under the description of safeguard measures for the purpose of protecting the
US steel industry, EU claimed that this was violating the WTO rules owing to the fact that
US steel imports have actually declined in the recent years.
Now that EU is expecting exemptions for its steel products as well as lower duties on other goods and in case US fails to offer satisfactory compensations, EU agreed to response the US measures by slapping some important US goods by counter-measures of $224mio(€378mio). The problem is that EU has to present the retaliatory tariffs until June 18 as per WTO rules whereas the US decision will only be made on July 3 whether to offer privileges to the EU.
By July 19, the European Commission will report the outcome of negotations with Washington and if by that date any improvement is obtained, by August 1 the EU ministers will decide whether to go bring the sanctions into effect or not. In case the European Commission believes there are the chances to reach an agreement, a decision on sanctions could be delayed until 12 October.EU believes that they have stated their expectancy for the US to make up for the safeguard measures they implemented in March.
Furthermore a separate list of longer term retaliatory measures is also anticipated worth €606m, which would be implemented in case EU wins the panel in the WTO investigating the the heavy US tariffs.