On March 4th, 2021, the office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and United Kingdom (UK) announced a four-month suspension of additional duties on large civilian aircrafts in an effort to resolve one of the longest running World Trade Organization (WTO) disputes.

According to the USTR press release, the UK had already stopped applying retaliatory tariffs associated with the Boeing dispute effective January 1st, 2021. Now, the US has decided to temporarily suspend tariffs on Airbus in an effort to de-escalate the situation and re-open settlement negotiations.

Officials revealed that this decision will “benefit a wide range of industries on both sides of the Atlantic, and allow for focused settlement negotiations to ensure that our aerospace industries can finally see a resolution and focus on COVID recovery and other shared goals.”

Click HERE to read the official USTR press release.

For our Shapiro customers, please keep in mind that we cannot immediately stop claiming the EU Section 301 tariffs; we must wait for the International Trade Commission (ITC) to update the HTS table and send it to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for release. This can take several days.

Update: On March 5th, the U.S.and the European Union solidified the March 4th announcement of a four-month suspension of additional duties on large civilian aircrafts on imports into the United States and retaliatory tariffs on imports into the EU; they advised that  the suspension will cover all tariffs both on aircraft as well as on non-aircraft products, such as food, wine, and liquor, and will become effective as soon as the internal procedures on both sides are completed.

This will allow the EU and the US to ease the burden on their industries and workers and focus efforts towards resolving these long running disputes at the WTO.

Click HERE to read the March 5th joint EU and US statement.

Please reach out to [email protected] with any questions.

Shapiro will continue to monitor the situation and provide status updates as they become available.