THE United States has submitted an initial offer to the European Union (EU) to resolve a three-year dispute over steel imported from the bloc, paving the way for a solution by a year-end deadline.

The proposal, which U.S. officials were weighing last week, involves a tariff-rate-quota system, according to a Bloomberg report Saturday. Intensive talks are ongoing, according to European officials.

The parties will discuss the issue at the inaugural meeting of the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council on Sept. 29 in Pittsburgh, where U.S. State Secretary Antony Blinken, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, and Trade Representative Katherine Tai will host European Commission Executive Vice Presidents Margrethe Vestager and Valdis Dombrovskis.

Tariff-rate quotas allow countries to export specified quantities of a product to other nations at lower duty rates, but subjects shipments above a pre-determined threshold to a higher duty.

The European Commission has confirmed with U.S. counterparts that it wants to find a solution before Dec. 1, said a commission spokesperson who declined to be identified.

The parties have agreed to move forward on restoring historic trade flows and to have a system that’s compliant with World Trade Organization rules on trade, the spokesperson said.

Then-President Donald Trump in 2018 slapped a 25 percent duty on steel imports and 10 percent on inward-bound shipments of aluminum from producers including the EU using section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act. The former president said the tariffs were needed to protect the domestic industry from going under.

Earlier this year, the U.S. stressed in conversations with EU counterparts that it sees the underlying problem of global steel overcapacity as a shared one and that the United States and EU need to work together.

The EU and U.S. in May agreed to avoid escalating their dispute over the tariffs, sparing iconic products such as bourbon whiskey and Harley-Davidson motorbikes from a doubling of EU reciprocal duties. The move was meant to create space to try to resolve the steel and aluminum dispute by year-end as both sides seek to rebuild their economic alliance.(SD-Agencies)