Boost for pork exports as US suspends retaliatory Airbus tariffs
In a welcome boost for UK pork exports, the US has today suspended all retaliatory tariffs on UK exports resulting from the Airbus dispute for four months.
The measures, which will come into force on Monday, March 8, backdated to today, have been agreed in an effort to reach a negotiated solution to the 16- year long dispute.
This follows the UK’s decision to suspend Boeing tariffs against the US from January, which the Government said was ‘a show of good faith which ensured the UK was not hit by further tariffs and allowed both countries to work on ending the dispute and focus on deepening our future trading relationship’.
The move by the US to impose 25% tariffs in autumn 2019 as the latest escalation in the long-running dispute affected UK pork exports worth approximately £38 million in 2018. While pork shipments to the US haven’t stopped entirely in the intervening months, the trade has been badly hit by the added costs incurred.
It affected a wide range of goods across the UK food and drink sector and beyond – in 2018, the US imported around £550m of goods affected by these measures from the UK.
The Government said the tariff suspension will help protect jobs on both sides of the Atlantic in industries who have been targeted by these ‘unfair tariffs’, particularly Scotch whisky, exports of which were worth around £340m in 2018.
The Department for International Trade also highlighted how ‘pig farmers in Yorkshire’ would benefit as exports worth around £38m in 2018 were affected, alongside ‘Cashmere producers in Ayrshire’ and ‘Stilton makers in the Midlands’.
by Alistair Driver / Pig World
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