There is a whole drama saga surrounding the US and EU tariff wars. We’ve already talked about how ACEM called for the end of the tariff war back in May, and it seems that both parties have come to a temporary agreement.
Let’s rewind for a bit to see how all this drama started. Back in 2004, the US and EU accused each other of unfairly financing Boeing and Airbus. It took 14 years for the World Trade Organization to declare both parties guilty, which allowed the US to implement $7,5 billion in tariffs and EU with $4 billion in duties.
After this decision, the situation worsened and expanded to more than just aircraft, from wine and whiskey to motorcycles. In 2018, this situation slowly plummeted into a trade war, as Trump imposed new aluminum and steel taxes on NATO allies located in the EU.
This prompted the EU to retaliate with tariffs that would jump to 56% tariffs for US-made motorcycles over 500cc, which hit Harley-Davidson the most.
To solve this problem, a summit was called on June 15, which resulted in a truce between the US President (Joe Biden) and the European Commission President (Ursula von der Leyen). This truce might break the 17-year tax and tariff crisis commenced by the Boeing-Airbus debacle.
So, what’s the truce all about? Both parties agreed on suspending the tariffs for the next five years, and it will go into motion on July 11.
In the end, this is just the first step in mending trade relations between the US and EU. This is welcome news for US motorcycle manufacturers who develop motorcycles over 500cc, but the aluminum and steel trade dispute still hasn’t been resolved.
But, from the US and EU perspective, it would make sense to team up and try to equal the Chinese overproduction of aluminum and steel. As these materials are tied to motorcycle manufacturing, this issue also needs to be resolved before the US-based motorcycle manufacturers can take a sigh of relief.
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Source: Ride Apart
