CECE & AEM urge US to abandon tariffs on EU goods

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CONSTRUCTION & ENGINEERING

At its annual summit meeting, the Committee for European Construction Equipment (CECE) and its US counterpart the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) have released a joint statement speaking out against the US government's imposition of tariffs on goods from the European Union.

Earlier this month, the World Trade Organization (WTO) gave the US the go-ahead to place $7.5-million (€6.8-billion) of tariffs on a range of EU goods, including certain types of construction machinery, following a ruling that the bloc had been illegally subsidising aerospace company Airbus.

The joint statement highlighted the likelihood of a tit-for-tat escalation of events, if the EU imposes its own tariffs on US goods if the WTO rules, as is expected, that the US has also been guilty of illegally subsidising Boeing.

The statement said that: "Notoriously, the use of tariffs will inevitably lead to counter tariffs, lost markets for producers, higher consumer prices, shaky investor confidence and the potential to undermine long established transatlantic supply chains our workers and industry depend on. The United States and the European Union need to focus on removing barriers to trade while working together to counter unfair trade practices by third countries. Strengthening the rule of law and reforming the WTO to effectively respond to the challenges of global commerce in the 21st century is in the shared interests of the United States and the European Union."

The joint statement went on, reiterating the point made by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, that 80% of world trade is driven by supply chains with trade in intermediate goods now nearly twice as large as trade in final goods. This is especially important in advanced manufacturing.”

CECE and AEM said "Both the United States and European Union are centres of technological development, transatlantic trade is helping create a strong path to sustained manufacturing competitiveness.”

The statement concluded with both organisations calling on the US and the EU "to work diligently together to defuse the tensions, abandon all plans by the United States of imposing these tariffs and avoid escalations leading to the imposition of additional tariffs by the European Union."

The full text of the joint statement can be seen here.

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