The United States said Friday it remained willing to negotiate with Europe to resolve a bitter trade row over aircraft subsidies, but warned its patience was running out.
Chief US negotiator Robert Zoellick has responded to a letter from EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson spelling out Washington's demand that no new government aid be extended to European aircraft giant Airbus, an official said.
"Zoellick responded on Monday to Commissioner Mandelson's letter, and his response ended with a simple question: Is the EU willing to continue to negotiate under the terms of the January 11 agreement, including the standstill on subsidies?" the senior trade official said on condition of anonymity.
Under the January accord, the United States and European Union gave themselves 90 days to resolve their dispute over state aid to Airbus and its US rival Boeing.
They agreed in the meantime not to extend any fresh subsidies or to seek arbitration at the World Trade Organization. That deadline expired Monday with no deal.
Matters have not been helped by strained relations between Zoellick, the number two at the US State Department and until recently US Trade Representative, and the British EU trade chief.
US sources also complain about a lack of clarity in the EU position.
Officially, Brussels under Mandelson has been taking the lead in the negotiations. But France now says it is willing to consider extending "launch aid" to the Airbus A350, potentially torpedoing any chance of a bilateral deal.
The new long-range, mid-sized A350 is destined to rival Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner, which itself is the US company's answer to the European conglomerate's A380 superjumbo.
Both companies are staking their futures on the new models, confident that each has the answer to the travel industry's long-term demands. That makes the subsidies row all the more sensitive.
The US Congress passed a joint resolution this week calling on Zoellick to ask the WTO to step in "at the earliest possible opportunity" unless the EU refuses to give aid for the A350 and "all future models" by Airbus.
It also said that President George W. Bush "should take any additional action the President considers appropriate to protect the interests of the United States in fair competition in the large commercial aircraft market."
With Zoellick's new intervention, "the Americans want to signal that they don't want to wait forever for a resumption of the negotiations," a source close to the case said.
The EU's executive commission this week declined to say how long the standoff could continue.
Discussions between Brussels and Washington were continuing, a spokeswoman for the EU trade commissioner said, despite the abrupt end to a telephone conversation between Mandelson and Zoellick two weeks ago.
But on Tuesday, the French government said it would resume consideration of public aid for the new A350 in the form of reimbursable advances.
The US government says that those advances and other "market distorting subsidies" have amounted to US$30 billion down the years for Airbus, without which it could never have overtaken Boeing.
The EU in turn says that Boeing benefits from billions of dollars in indirect assistance through the form of federal money for military research, financial incentives from US states, and export tax breaks.
French Transport Minister Gilles de Robien appears resigned to the bilateral negotiations failing.
"I don't think at all that we risk something in going to the WTO. If in the last resort we had to go there, then we would go there with a certain calm," he said Wednesday.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”