El Diario Exterior: It's Airbus vs. Boeing: Largest Trade War in WTO Histo

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It's Airbus vs. Boeing: Largest Trade War in WTO History May Have Just Begun
June 1, 2005

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The European Union and the United States resumed yesterday, after a 5-month truce called for negotiations, a commercial war against public subsidies for the manufacturers of Airbus and Boeing aircraft. The dispute threatens to become the largest, most difficult and most expensive in the history of the World Trade Organization, European Union trade chief Peter Mandelson said.

Brussels will again denounce before the WTO the $3 billion in public assistance that Washington has granted since 1992 to Boeing, the North American aircraft manufacturer, in response to a similar demand made last night by the United States over the subsidies that the Twenty-five grant Airbus.

Mandelson warned that they are thousands of jobs at stake, as much in the E.U. as in the U.S., and recalled that millions of passengers fly on aircraft built by the two companies. For that reason, he said he was sorry that the U.S. has chosen to go to Geneva instead of solving the issue through talks, and he indicated that the objective is "to damage" the launch of the new Airbus 350, which competes with Boeing’s Dreamliner 7E7.

Mandelson, criticizing involving the WTO in, "a grudge match between Boeing and Airbus to control the global market, where there is room for both companies," added, "Commercially, Airbus is a great success, and for that reason this complaint has been made. What Boeing fears is the competition, not to the subsidies.”

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