Vocal Voices

But this time they will be WTO approved sanctions by the US against the EU for illegal subsidies to Airbus....

Giving Trump a lot more legitimacy around his claim that the EU is a tariff walled WTO rule breaker and not someone you would, willingly, want to trade with..

Makes for more interesting news though.

Oh look, it's the big bad EU.

I mean, it is not as if the US has never been called out for dodgy subsidies to the likes of Disney, Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Good Lord no.

And what about the Japanese, Russians, Chinese, Indians or Brazilians? All spotlessly clean?

Workingman wrote:Oh look, it's the big bad EU.And what about the Japanese, Russians, Chinese, Indians or Brazilians? All spotlessly clean?

Not at all. But the US and the EU are by far the largest transgressors as witnessed by the link I pointed to on the other thread.

Whilst the US is in for a huge number of complaints by smaller countries with smaller issues, the EU, as far as I can see, has the largest proportion of very large complaints from large economies.

Never mind the fact that the EU, soon to be 18% of GDP, is much smaller than NAFTA at 28% of GDP. You would expect that the larger economic area would be the most aggressive in barriers. However the US has some of the lowest barriers to trade in the world. The EU has some of the highest.

Although I expect that landscape to change under Trump as he seeks to redress the balance directly. Rather than the 14 years it took to work through the WTO on Airbus.