US may tackle EU on tariffs

The US is considering action against the EU with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) over tariffs that the EU imposes on certain electronics products, US trade representative Susan Schwab said this week.

Speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Ms Schwab said the US was talking to other countries who also feel that EU tariffs on products such as set-top boxes are a violation of the Information Technology Agreement (ITA), which has been in place since 1997.

The ITA calls on 70 WTO members that account for about 97 per cent of world trade in technology products to eliminate tariffs on IT goods such as computers and computer parts.

Europe has imposed or has threatened to impose tariffs on products such as multifunction printers, certain liquid-crystal display monitors and set-top boxes, arguing it can impose tariffs on those items because they were not invented when the ITA was negotiated, Ms Schwab said.

Those items, according to Ms Schwab, are products that are covered under the agreement but that have evolved and added new features.

For example, Europe regards LCD monitors over 48cm (19in) as televisions, which are not covered under the ITA.

"We're kind of burned out on the jaw-boning side of the equation. It's not working," said Ms Schwab. "We are looking at going to resolution on the ITA with the World Trade Organisation."

Ms Schwab said she would prefer not to litigate, because it was time-consuming and did not solve the fundamental issue of whether "convergence" products - technology items that can perform more than one function - were covered under the ITA.