THE European Union (EU) and the United States agreed to suspend tariffs on billions of dollars of each other’s products, easing a 17-year transatlantic dispute over illegal aid to the world’s biggest aircraft makers.

U.S. President Joe Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen agreed to the move on a call Friday, the commission said in a statement.

“This suspension will help restore confidence and trust, and therefore give us the space to come to a comprehensive and long-lasting negotiated solution,” European Commission Executive Vice-President and Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said in a separate statement. “A positive EU-U.S. trade relationship is important not only to the two sides but to global trade at large.”

Key elements of a negotiated solution will include disciplines on future support in this sector and addressing the “trade-distortive practices” of new entrants to the sector from non-market economies such as China, the United States and EU said in a joint release.

The fight over aid to Airbus SE and Boeing Co. has resulted in duties — authorized by the World Trade Organization — that target a combined US$11.5 billion in transatlantic trade and affect a range of industrial, agricultural and consumer goods. The EU hit US$4 billion of American products in November — about a year after Donald Trump’s administration ignored European pleas to refrain from imposing levies on US$7.5 billion of imports from the bloc.

Through its duties, the United States has targeted key European products like French wine and Spanish olives while Europe has hit U.S. tractors, nuts and fruit.

Some of the companies affected by the tariffs — among the largest approved by the WTO to date — include European luxury brand owners such as LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE that owns Givenchy and Fendi, alcoholic-beverage maker Bacardi Ltd., Caterpillar Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

Airbus said it welcomed the decision. The company “supports all necessary actions to create a level playing field and continues to support a negotiated settlement of this long-standing dispute to avoid lose-lose tariffs,” it said in a statement.

The move is a “hopeful signal” that a negotiated settlement that will permanently remove the duties is close, said Myron Brilliant, the executive vice president and head of international affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

“The clock is running now: The transatlantic economy needs this deal,” he said.

On Thursday, the United States said it will suspend retaliatory tariffs on U.K. products caught up in the aircraft-subsidy dispute in a boost for post-Brexit Britain’s trade agenda.

The suspension — which will also last four months — will enable a “focus on negotiating a balanced settlement to the disputes,” the U.K. Government said. The decision means goods like Scotch whisky, biscuits and clotted cream can be imported to the United States from Britain without being subject to an additional 25 percent duty.

The WTO previously ruled that the governments of Germany, France, Spain and the United Kingdom provided Airbus with illegal subsidies through launch-aid loans for aircraft development, equity infusions, debt forgiveness and various other financial contributions.

The Geneva-based trade body also ruled that in the United States, Boeing benefited from illegal subsidies through a since-withdrawn Washington state business and occupation tax break.(SD-Agencies)