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United States | Brussels, 19 February 2019

Economic analysis confirms significant gains from EU-US industrial tariff agreement

An economic analysis by the European Commission shows that a targeted EU-US agreement eliminating tariffs on industrial goods would increase EU exports to the US by 8% and US exports to the EU by 9% by 2033. This corresponds to additional gains of €27 billion and €26 billion in EU and US exports respectively.

The European Commission has today submitted to the European Parliament and EU Member States an economic analysis on the benefits for EU and US producers and consumers of eliminating tariffs on industrial goods across various sectors. The economic analysis will be made public shortly after its discussion by Member States in Council and will be complemented later in 2019 with a Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) conducted by independent experts.

On 18 January 2019, the European Commission put forward proposals to the EU Member States to start negotiations with the United States to eliminate remaining tariffs on industrial goods and facilitate conformity assessments.

This is part of the implementation of the Joint Statement agreed by Presidents Juncker and Trump in in July 2018 to eliminate barriers to transatlantic trade and generally improve the transatlantic trade relationship. Agricultural goods are not included as these are not part of the July 2018 agreement. The future negotiations on an agreement limited to industrial goods are not linked to previous discussions on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) that remain frozen.

The targeted scope of the trade negotiations reflects a shared ambition with the US to develop a positive trade agenda that brings quick and tangible results to both sides. They are one leg of an ongoing process to improve the transatlantic trade relationship that is already delivering results, including closer cooperation on diversifying European energy sources through increased imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) or soybean imports from the US, as well as reforming the international rules on trade.

More information

The economic analysis

Current EU-US trade relationship

Fact sheet - significant economic gains from eliminating EU-US industrial tariffs