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EU
ministers responsible for trade were meeting by video conference
on Monday, two days after Democrat Joe Biden clinched the
presidency. President Donald Trump, with whom Europe has had
strained relations, has not conceded and is making legal
challenges to the outcome of the Nov. 3 election.
"There are great expectations and the hope that the American
presidential elections will lead to a return to multilateral
engagement in international trade and that it will be possible
to overcome past conflicts," German Economy Minister Peter
Altmaier told a news conference before the ministers met.
EU trade chief Valdis Dombrovskis said the European Commission,
which coordinates trade policy for the 27 EU member states, had
made some informal contacts with Team Biden.
"So some first contacts have been made, among other things also
to discuss trade issues," he said.
The EU wants the United States to remove U.S. tariffs on steel
and aluminium and resolve a dispute over civil aircraft
subsidies for planemakers Boeing and Airbus.
The bloc is ready to impose extra duties on $4 billion of U.S.
imports after a World Trade Organization award in a case on
Boeing. The United States already has tariffs on $7.5 billion of
EU products approved in a parallel WTO case related to Airbus.
Dombrovskis, a vice president of the European Commission,
repeated an EU offer that the bloc would suspend its measures if
the United States did the same, but said Washington had so far
not agreed to do so.
"We are ready to suspend or withdraw our tariffs any time when
the U.S. suspends or withdraws their tariffs. We are ready to do
it any time," he said.
(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
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