October 19, 2020 — The European Union can impose tariffs of up to USD 4 billion (EUR 3.4 billion) on imported products from the United States as a countermeasure for illegal subsidies given to American aircraft-maker Boeing, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has ruled.
The decision, made on 13 October, builds upon the WTO’s earlier finding that recognized the Boeing subsidies were illegal.
October 7, 2020 — Twenty or so small boats, slung with orange floats and lobster pots and bearing banners reading “SAVE BRITAIN’S FISH” and “COASTAL COMMUNITIES COUNT,” chugged out of the harbor into the bay. The flotilla set off rockets and flares, and orange and white smoke billowed out over the English Channel. The unusual episode—part protest, part distress call—was replicated in port towns across Britain in April 2018. “You get pushed that far, you’ve got to do something,” Dave Pitman, 65, a third-generation trawlerman who took part in the demonstration, said in an interview this August.
At issue was the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), a European Union agreement that gives European boats access to British waters and which, critics claim, has decimated the U.K.’s fishing industry. The country remains in the CFP while it negotiates its exit from the EU, which Fishing for Leave spokesman Arron Banks said in a statement at the time gives Europe the opportunity “to cull what’s left of the UK fleet.” He added, “Brexit creates a golden opportunity to regain 70 per cent of the UK’s fisheries resources and rejuvenate a multi-billion pound industry for the nation.”
October 1, 2020 — The transatlantic trade conflict isn’t showing signs of winding down any time soon, and a ruling from the World Trade Organization means that a fresh round of retaliatory tariffs could jeopardize the nascent economic recoveries in both the U.S. and the European Union.
The WTO gave the EU authorization to impose tariffs on $4 billion of U.S. exports over illegal government aid provided to Boeing Co., according to two people familiar with the decision. The EU previously said it would act on the levies immediately to counteract $7.5 billion of tariffs Washington placed on European goods in a separate case involving Toulouse, France-based Airbus SE.
The judgment comes at a delicate moment, with the U.S. presidential election just over a month away and as the U.S. and the EU struggle to recover from coronavirus-induced recessions. The EU tariffs will target coal producers, farmers and fisheries, in addition to aircraft makers, all politically important industries for President Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress.
October 1, 2020 — The U.S. International Trade Commission heard testimony Thursday, 1 October, on the effect the trade agreement between Canada and the European Union has had on America’s lobster industry.
The Canada-E.U. pact, known as the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), has had a detrimental effect on U.S. lobstermen and exporters since it took effect three years ago, according to Robert DeHaan, the vice president for government affairs for the National Fisheries Institute. DeHaan said the deal meant U.S. exporters faced 8 percent tariffs on live lobsters and up to 20 percent on value-added products while their Canadian counterparts paid no levies on the same products, providing them with a significant competitive advantage.
September 14, 2020 — The European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment (ENVI) has voted in favor of steps that would bring more transparency to E.U. fisheries activities and traceability to seafood supply chains.
ENVI’s proposed amendments to the fisheries control regulation include:
September 11, 2020 — Allowing the United Kingdom and the European Union to part ways at the end of this year without an agreement on fisheries in place post-Brexit would open the door to overfishing and pose a serious risk to many fish stocks and marine ecosystems, campaign groups have warned.
On 8 September, the E.U. and U.K. began a new round of post-Brexit trade deal negotiations, with fisheries and fishing rights again expected to take center stage as one of the main obstacles to a broader deal.
September 10, 2020 — Why, then, does fishing stir people up? It’s not jobs or money. According to Commons Library research, the UK fishing industry employs about 24,000 people and earns around £1.4bn per annum. As a proportion of Britain’s £2.1 trillion 2019 GDP, that’s small change. And with 27,000 employees in the UK alone, Amazon provides more jobs today than the entire British fishing sector.
The BBC recently had a go, suggesting that ‘supporters of Brexit’ see fishing as ‘a symbol of sovereignty that will now be regained’. But it goes deeper than abstract ideas of control. The environmentalist Paul Kingsnorth argues that if we’re to find national identity anywhere, it’s in the relationship we have with our landscape we inhabit. And for the inhabitants of the British Isles, no matter which wave of migration brought us here since this landmass was settled in about 900,000BC, that identity has been bound up with the sea.
Wherever you live in the British Isles, it’s not possible to be more than 70 miles from the sea. We have around 19,500 miles of coastline: more than Brazil. The sea has sustained and shaped Britain for thousands of years.
The usual angle on this story is about commerce and colonisation. In its pomp, the might of the British Empire was inseparable from its maritime culture. This fact, and Britain’s decline from imperial grandeur, underpinned the recent controversy over singing “Rule Britannia” at the Proms . But so far the culture war has largely ignored those working-class men who plied the same waves not to conquer or trade, but to catch fish.
Fishing has been part of British culture since time immemorial, but especially on the North Sea coast. The monks of Wyke Hull were granted a special licence to fish in the Humber by King Henry II in the 12th century. Then in the 19th century, when the arrival of railways opened up new inland markets for fresh fish, a wave of migration to the area made Hull a fishing boom town. Often-illiterate fishermen set sail in ‘fishing smacks’, light sail-powered vessels of around 50 feet with a crew of around four men, to trawl for deep-sea fish as far afield as the Faroes and Iceland.
August 24, 2020 — New England lobsters should soon be returning to European pots under a modest trade agreement announced Friday.
In a big win for New England beleaguered lobster industry, the European Union agreed to drop its 8% tariff on U.S. lobsters for the next five years and to work to make the move permanent.
For its part, the United States agreed to cut in half tariffs on EU imports worth about $160 million a year, including some prepared meals, crystal glassware and cigarette lighters. The tariff cuts are retroactive to Aug. 1.
U.S. lobster imports to the EU came to about $111 million in 2017 before falling off in the face of rising tensions between the trading partners and an EU trade agreement with Canada that favored Canadian lobster.
Lobster fishing, based mostly in Maine and Massachusetts, is one of the most lucrative marine industries in New England.
August 21, 2020 — The following was released by the Office of the United States Trade Representative:
United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and European Union Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan today announced agreement on a package of tariff reductions that will increase market access for hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. and EU exports. These tariff reductions are the first U.S.-EU negotiated reductions in duties in more than two decades.
Under the agreement, the EU will eliminate tariffs on imports of U.S. live and frozen lobster products. U.S. exports of these products to the EU were over $111 million in 2017. The EU will eliminate these tariffs on a Most Favored Nation (MFN) basis, retroactive to begin August 1, 2020. The EU tariffs will be eliminated for a period of five years and the European Commission will promptly initiate procedures aimed at making the tariff changes permanent. The United States will reduce by 50% its tariff rates on certain products exported by the EU worth an average annual trade value of $160 million, including certain prepared meals, certain crystal glassware, surface preparations, propellant powders, cigarette lighters and lighter parts. The U.S. tariff reductions will also be made on an MFN basis and retroactive to begin August 1, 2020.
“As part of improving EU-US relations, this mutually beneficial agreement will bring positive results to the economies of both the United States and the European Union. We intend for this package of tariff reductions to mark just the beginning of a process that will lead to additional agreements that create more free, fair, and reciprocal transatlantic trade,” said Ambassador Lighthizer and Commissioner Hogan.
Timeline on Negotiations:
In 2019, at the direction of President Donald J. Trump, the United States completed formal procedures necessary to launch negotiations on a trade agreement, as did the European Commission.
In September 2018, as required by the Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities and Accountability Act of 2015, Ambassador Lighthizer consulted with members of Congress on the Trump Administration’s interest in launching trade negotiations with the EU. On October 16, 2018, the Office of the United States Trade Representative officially notified Congress that President Trump intended to launch trade negotiations with the EU. On January 11, 2019, following consultations with Congress and public comment period from U.S. stakeholders, the Trump Administration issued formal U.S. negotiating objectives for the EU.
The agreement being announced today arose out of continuing engagement with the EU on these issues.
August 21, 2020 — The European Union will immediately eliminate its tariffs on imports of U.S. live and frozen lobster products, according to an announcement from the United States Trade Representative’s office.
An agreement struck between U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and European Union Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan on Friday, 21 August will result in the E.U. eliminating the lobster tariffs on a Most-Favored Nation basis, retroactive to 1 August, 2020. In return, the United States will reduce by 50 percent its tariffs on a variety of products including prepared meals, glassware, propellant powders, cigarette lighters, and other products collectively valued at around USD 160 million (EUR 135.7 million). The U.S. tariff reductions will also be made on a Most-Favored Nation basis and are retroactive to 1 August.