The European Union has suspended 14% retaliatory duties on American raw hides, skins and finished leather exports, as well as finished leathergoods after Congress abolished foreign sales corporations giving illegal tax breaks to US exporters. The EU Council of Ministers has suspended these duties until next January, while a WTO disputes panel examines whether successor legislation, the American Jobs Creation Act, complies with global trade rules.
These duties will be scrapped permanently if the WTO approves the new US law, but the 14% duties will be reimposed if it does not.
US exports losing the additional duty include certain kinds of tanned or crust hides and skins; leather further prepared after tanning or crusting, including parchment-dressed leather; certain chamois (not from sheep and lambs); patent leather and patent laminated leather; metalised leather; composition leather with a basis of leather or leather fibre, in slabs, sheets or strip, whether or not in rolls; parings and other leather waste or composition leather, not suitable for the manufacture of leather articles; leather dust, powder and flour.
And they also include saddlery and harnesses, certain leather luggage, leather clothing, and some leather footwear, including sports shoes and footwear with leather outer soles and strapped uppers.
