USTR Tai-Hopeful US & EU Will Clinch Green Steel Deal By End-Oct

Speaking to the Atlantic Council-Atlantik Brucke Transaltantic Forum on GeoEconomics, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai states that she is "very hopeful" that the US and EU will reach a deal on 'green' steel and aluminium by the end of October. Livestream of Tai's keynote and Q&A can be found here.

• Should an agreement on the 'Global Arrangement on Sustainable Steel and Aluminum' (GSA) not be reached by that point then tariffs imposed by former US President Donald Trump and retaliatory measures by the EU would kick back in on more than USD10bn worth of exports. This is unless another temporary suspension of the measures is agreed to by both sides.
• While goodwill appears to be in abundance on both sides, political realities in both the US and EU will kick in in the not-too-distant future. In the EU, elections for the European Parliament take place in June 2024, and the US presidential election cycle will ramp up significantly from the start of the year.
• This will both suck the political oxygen out of negotiations, as focus turns elsewhere, and make concessions by either side more unpalatable with the risk of alienating voters or business groups related to the sectors in question.