WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) – The USA and Great Britain have settled their dispute over the special tariffs on steel and aluminum imports introduced under ex-President Donald Trump for the time being. The UK will be allowed to import certain amounts of steel and aluminum duty-free into the US from June, according to a statement on the agreement distributed in Washington on Tuesday. The duty-free trade volume should roughly correspond to that of 2018 and 2019, when there were no punitive tariffs. Britain will therefore waive additional import fees on US goods worth around 500 million US dollars (around 450 million euros), it said.
The agreement follows the model of an agreement between the government of US President Joe Biden and the European Union, which was announced at the end of last year. A similar deal with Japan was also announced in February.
Trump justified the tariffs of 25 percent, which also affected close US allies such as Japan and the Europeans, with “interests in national security”. When he took office a good year ago, the Democrat Biden promised to mend the relationship with the US allies that had been damaged by Trump./jbz/DP/jha