The US wants to resolve the dispute with the EU over import duties

The United States hopes that the dispute with the European Union over import duties on steel and aluminum will be resolved by the end of October. This was stated this week by a source familiar with the negotiations. US Trade Representative Katherine Tai met with EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis on Tuesday, and the US government hopes the agreement will be reached by the end of the month, according to a source for Reuters. In May of this year, Tai and Dombrovskis agreed on a "six-month truce". The aim was to ease tensions between trading partners and create space for negotiations. This period expires at the end of November. A dispute over tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum broke out in the summer of 2018, when then-President Donald Trump decided to impose import duties on steel at 25 percent and on aluminum at 10 percent. At the same time, Trump took the opportunity to impose tariffs based on a paragraph on "threats to national security," which Americans used especially during the Cold War. A source from the steel sector said Tai and EU officials had moved a little further towards a possible agreement to replace the disputed paragraph 232 of the Commercial Code used by Trump with a measure known as TRQ. This allows duty-free import of a certain volume of steel from the EU, with the duty only paying above the agreed volume. According to the source, the negotiations are progressing well, but refused to state whether the agreement will be concluded by 31 October. Dombrovskis has indicated that he is open to this solution, which would be similar to the agreement between the United States on the one hand and Canada and Mexico on the other. However, he added that the agreement is needed in early November at the latest. Other EU officials told Reuters that much would depend on the amount of steel that could be imported into the US duty free.