The U.S. and European Union are celebrating a new agreement settling their diplomatic rift over Trump-era steel and aluminum tariffs
The agreement was first announced Saturday in Rome by U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. They said the Article 232 tariffs, as they are known, would not be removed entirely but that some quantity of European steel and aluminum will be allowed to enter the U.S. tariff-free.
In return for Europe dropping its retaliatory tariffs, the U.S. would also ensure “that all steel entering the U.S. via Europe is produced entirely in Europe,” Raimondo said.
The easing of the tariffs is a key step in unwinding one of Donald Trump’s legacies as president as Biden has tried to reset U.S. relations with Europe.
The Trump administration had placed taxes on EU steel and aluminum in 2018, claiming the foreign products made by American allies were a threat to U.S. national security.
Europeans and other allies were outraged by Trump’s use of the Article 232 section of U.S. trade law to justify the tariffs, leading many to impose counter-tariffs on U.S.-made motorcycles, bourbon, peanut butter and jeans and hundreds of other items.
The back-and-forth hurt European producers and raised steel costs for American companies. The tariffs also did not achieve Trump’s stated goal of creating jobs at steel mills. The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that jobs in the manufacturing of primary metals did rise slightly, to as much as 389,100 in 2019. But mills shed workers during the pandemic, and employment in the sector is roughly half of what it was in 1990.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/us-eu-deal-tariffs-sign-rebuilt-relationship-80886624