The European Parliament committee just voted in favour of the legislation to remove duties on many US goods and imports, essentially steering clear of another clash with the US on trade – such as the one last year.

As a reminder, US president Trump set a deadline of 4 July for the EU to sort this out or risk incurring a further butting of heads on trade/tariffs once again.

With the passing of the vote here, we are at least seeing the EU avoid another trade conflict with the US. And that’s good news especially at a time when the fallout from the Middle East conflict is set to dampen the economy significantly in the coming months.

Just a note though that the legislation above still needs to be approved by the full EU assembly. That is expected some time around mid-June but it should just be a mere formality.