U.S. files WTO complaint about Airbus subsidies

? The U.S. trade representative initiated a World Trade Organization complaint Wednesday against the European Union, claiming that European governments provide unfair subsidies to France-based plane maker Airbus.

The European Union immediately fired back with similar charges against the United States and Boeing, pushing the multibillion-dollar global rivalry between the plane makers to the brink of a trade war. The once-upstart Airbus now sells more commercial jetliners than the long-dominant U.S.-based Boeing.

Technicians assemble segments of an Airbus A 380-800 aircraft in a hangar at an airport in Dresden, Germany. They were preparing Wednesday for a full-scale fatigue test. U.S. trade authorities on Wednesday filed a World Trade Organization complaint against the European Union regarding billions in subsidies to Airbus.

Along with filing a request for consultations, the first step in a WTO case, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick scrapped a 1992 trade agreement regulating government subsidies of Boeing and Airbus, saying Airbus no longer needs the support it once claimed was necessary to its success.

“If that rationalization were ever valid, its time has long passed,” Zoellick said in a written statement.

It’s appropriate “to step up and fight that fire with fire,” said Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan. Brownback said he could support federal subsidies to Boeing if that’s what it took to force the Europeans to negotiate.

Ralph Crosby, who heads the North American division of European Aeronautic Defense & Space, which owns 80 percent of Airbus, predicted “more heat than light” from the American complaint.