BRUSSELS/LONDON (Reuters) - The United States won approval on Wednesday to impose tariffs on$7.5 billion worth of European goods over illegal EU subsidies handed to Airbus, threatening to trigger a tit-for-tat transatlantic trade war as the global economy falters.
The decision by the World Trade Organization pushes a 15-year corporate dispute over illegal support for transatlantic plane giants to the center of caustic world trade relations and comes on top of a tariff war between Washington and Beijing.
The European Commission said in response that a U.S. move to impose trade sanctions on EU imports would be “short-sighted and counterproductive” and risked causing damage on both sides of the Atlantic.
The WTO has found that both Europe’s Airbus (AIR.PA) and its U.S. rival Boeing (BA.N) received billions of dollars of illegal subsidies in the world’s largest corporate trade dispute, a legal marathon dating back to 2004.
The two cases are expected to lead to tit-for-tat tariffs, beginning with the U.S. measures, posing new problems for businesses and financial markets around the world.
The focus of nervous markets will now shift to Washington where the U.S. Trade Representative is expected to move quickly to narrow down a preliminary list of goods in line for tariffs, a U.S. source said.
The agency’s provisional list of products that are eligible to be targeted with tariffs ranges from Airbus jets themselves to helicopters, wine, handbags and cheese.
Before any tariffs can be imposed, the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body must formally adopt the arbiters’ report in a process expected to take between 10 days and 4 weeks.
Its next scheduled
