ACC, Cefic issue joint statement on US/EU Trade Deal

Washington / Brussels – Cefic and the American Chemistry Council (ACC) have issued a joint statement on the recent trade agreement reached by US president Trump and European Commission president von der Leyen.

Signed by ACC president and CEO Chris Jahn and Cefic’s director general Marco Mensink, the statement said the understanding avoids measures that could have “significantly affected the deeply integrated transatlantic trade and investment relationships” in the chemicals sector.

The chemicals industry, noted the statement, is core to the competitiveness of almost all manufacturing value-chains including automotive goods, defence, agriculture, and consumer products.

Most EU-US chemicals trade, it added, is made up of intra-company and inter-company transfers that sustain jobs on both sides of the Atlantic.

ACC and Cefic went on to call for the development of a “binding sectoral agreement on chemical products… increasing bilateral market access for our respective exports and ensuring a level playing field.”

The US and the EU are both original signatories to the Chemical Tariff Harmonization Agreement (CTHA) that addresses and reduces tariff disparities on chemicals between our two jurisdictions.

Tariffs above CTHA rates “risk disrupting our closely integrated transatlantic industry,” said the joint statement, which also called for “enhanced regulatory cooperation and simplification.

“A deeper bilateral commitment for our sector would help secure domestic and resilient manufacturing of chemicals necessary to support innovation and further downstream manufacturing, stimulate research and development, and incentivize tariff agreements with other trading partner countries.”