The European Union will not double its tariffs on boats made in the U.S. to 50 percent on June 1 after all. Earlier this week, negotiators for the EU and the U.S. announced that the retaliatory tariffs on U.S. boats and some other American-made products would remain at 25 percent for the next six months or so.
The temporary truce was regarded as a victory for Frank Hugelmeyer, president of the National Marine Manufacturers Association, and Gina M. Romando, the new Secretary of Commerce and former Governor of Rhode Island, who is particularly responsive to the needs of American boat builders. They had both worked hard to roll back the scheduled increase.
The European Commission, which is in charge of EU trade policy, said it would suspend the proposed doubling of tariffs for as long as six months. The tariff applies to many American-made products, including boats, bourbon, and motorcycles.
The NMMA says that since the EU started the retaliatory tariff in 2018, U.S. boat builders have suffered a 42 percent decrease in exports, worth more than $400 million in potential sales. The EU is the U.S. boating industry’s second largest international market, after Canada. The EU tariffs were in retaliation for the Trump Administration’s tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum on imports from China, India, Norway, Russia, Switzerland, and Turkey.
The announcement this week came just a month before President Biden is scheduled to attend a U.S.-EU summit, where trade cooperation will be on the agenda. A delegate from the EU said it was aware of “terrible optics” if they raised tariffs on U.S. products just before Biden’s visit. But Bernd Lange, the head of a trade committee for the European Parliament, said the U.S. needs to come to the summit with “a tangible commitment to reciprocate the EU gesture” or the tariff increase would be justified. Read more:
