Senators urge U.S. to remove tariffs on EU foods, beverages

A bipartisan group of 13 U.S. senators has asked the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office (USTR) to remove 25% tariffs imposed in October 2019 on European Union food, wine, and spirits, according to a letter seen by Reuters.

The tariffs, in retaliation for EU subsidies on large aircraft, hit French wine, Italian cheese, and single-malt Scotch whiskey, as well as cookies, salami, yogurt, olives from France, EU-produced pork sausage and German coffee.

Seven Republican and six Democratic senators, including Robert Menendez, John Barrasso, Cory Gardner, Susan Collins, Dianne Feinstein, Pat Toomey, Kyrsten Sinema, and Cory Booker said in a letter to USTR Friday that American “restaurants, retailers, grocers, importers and distributors” are experiencing “severe economic hardship due to the increased cost of goods.”

The senators noted, “demand for these goods has declined, leaving importers and distributors with months’ worth of product, much of it perishable, in storage and in transit with no clear end date for the COVID-19 pandemic.”

USTR did not immediately comment.

Last month, Europe’s Airbus said it would increase loan repayments to France and Spain in a “final” bid to reverse U.S. tariffs and jog the United States into settling a 16-year-old dispute over billions of dollars of aircraft subsidies.

The United States last year won World Trade Organization authorization to impose tariffs on up to $7.5 billion of EU goods.

Trade groups are bracing for an escalation this autumn when the EU is expected to win WTO approval to retaliate with its own tariffs over subsidies for U.S. planemaker Boeing Co.

USTR announced in June it was considering imposing additional tariffs on products from many EU countries