The US and EU have reached an agreement to end a long-standing dispute over steel and aluminum tariffs set by former US President Donald Trump, US officials said on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Rome.
The EU’s head of trade, Valdis Dombrovskis, confirmed the deal in a Twitter post on Saturday, writing, “we have agreed with US to pause our steel & aluminium (232) trade dispute and launch cooperation on a Global Arrangement on Sustainable Steel & Aluminium.”
We have agreed with 🇺🇸 to pause our steel & aluminium (232) trade dispute and launch cooperation on a Global Arrangement on Sustainable Steel & Aluminium.
Dombrovskis stated that the new agreement will be formally announced by US President Joe Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen later on Sunday.
According to US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, the new agreement will allow “a limited amount of steel and aluminum from the EU to be imported into the US duty-free,” while maintaining tariffs of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum for some imports. Officials did not specify the volume of duty-free metals to be allowed into the US under the new deal, but Reuters sources claimed that annual volumes below 3.3 million tons would be freed from tariffs.
“These were very successful consultations, we agreed on how to proceed with a common challenge, which is the global oversupply, mainly caused by China,” Raimondo stated, as cited by Reuters. The official also noted that Washington expects the new deal to help curb supply disruptions of the metals in the US.
The Trump administration imposed duties on steel and aluminum imports from the EU in 2018, citing national security issues as the reason. The EU responded with retaliatory tariff measures of their own on US products, including bourbon whiskey, Harley-Davidson motorcycles, and motor boats. The new deal is expected to remove these measures.
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