Fighting election-year charges that his signature tax cuts helped the rich at the expense of the middle class, US President George W. Bush on Friday threatened WTO action against European aircraft maker Airbus.
Eighty-one days out from the Nov. 2 election that pits Bush against Democratic Senator John Kerry, polls show the two candidates running neck and neck but that the public trusts the challenger more on economic policy.
Campaigning in Oregon with Hollywood superstar Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry seized on a government report showing that the rich now pay a smaller percentage share of taxes while the middle-class tax burden has risen.
Bush "is turning his back on middle-class families," Kerry said. "His tax breaks have forced them to pay a bigger share of America's tax burden, forcing them to bear the brunt of his failed economic policies."
Bush defended his tax cuts as spurring growth, but his big economic announcement was a warning that he would consider going to the WTO if Europe does not end "unfair" subsidies to Airbus Industrie.
"I've instructed US Trade Representative Bob Zoellick to inform European officials in his September meeting that we think these subsidies are unfair and that he should pursue all options to end these subsidies -- including bringing a WTO case, if need be," he said.
The announcement, which came after Bush met privately with workers from Airbus arch-rival Boeing, also seemed geared to battling Kerry's charges that the US economy had lost jobs to overseas labor.
"Boeing is a great name in American industry," he told reporters in a brief statement that identified Airbus Industrie as "a European company" funded by "European nations" and backed by "European governments."
Under a 1992 US-EU agreement, European support for new aircraft programs -- provided in royalty-based loans -- was limited to 33 percent of the total cost, repayable with interest within 17 years.
On the other hand, indirect US support through NASA or military programs was limited to 3 percent of turnover for the US' large commercial aircraft industry.
Both candidates started in Oregon, so close to each other that the charter jet carrying the White House press corps parked almost wing-to-wing with the Massachusetts senator's red, white and blue campaign plane.
Bush renewed his criticisms of Kerry over the war in Iraq, while his campaign unveiled a new commercial, set to run during the Olympic Games, that trumpets the participation of athletes from war-weary Iraq and Afghanistan.
The campaign touts the presence in Athens of the athletes in an effort to show that both war-weary countries are on the right track.
"There will be two more free nations, and two fewer terrorist regimes" in Athens, Bush says in the commercial.
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