Officials of the European Union have revealed that they plan to drop $4 billion (GBP2.2 billion) in penalizing tariffs on a number of textile- and apparel exports to the US. The decisions were made as a reprisal against so-called illegal subsidies, they said. The sanctions are expected to be revoked from 1 January 2005.

In March, the punitive tariffs had been started at 5% with a monthly increase to the current 12%. Although they had only a small impact on exports of apparel and home furnishings, yarn exports did suffer as a result.