NEWS OF THE WEEK
U.S. CHEMICAL TRADE: EEC threatens higher tariffs, quotas Chemicals once again have become a pawn in a trade battle between the U.S. and the European Economic Community. In retaliation against restrictions that President Reagan imposed last July on specialty steel imports from EEC countries, the community's governing commission has threatened to impose higher tariffs on some U.S. chemical exports and set quotas on others. The EEC action will become effective March 1, unless officials in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) can come up with a satisfactory package of trade concessions to compensate EEC for the curbs against its specialty steel shipments. The higher tariffs will hit U.S. exports of methanol and vinyl acetate to EEC countries. Quotas are targeted against styrene and certain grades of polyethylene sheet. The duties on both methanol and vinyl acetate will increase almost 50%. For methanol, the tariff will rise from 13.5% to 19.9% by adding a 6.4% surcharge. The vinyl acetate
One fourth of U.S. chemical exports go to EEC $ Billions 25
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