UPDATE 1-EU lawmakers clear U.S. beef imports while criticising tariffs

EU lawmakers approved an increase in U.S. beef imports to the European Union on Thursday while criticising the Trump administration for imposing tariffs on metal imports and threatening to target EU cars and car parts.

Lawmakers of the European Parliament voted by 457-140, with 71 abstentions, in favour of a plan to allow U.S. farmers a larger share of an existing 45,000-tonne quota from 2020. The vote came with a resolution urging the removal of tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump on EU steel and aluminium and the withdrawal of his threat to raise tariffs on EU cars and car parts.

The lawmakers also called on Washington to work with Brussels to find a solution to a dispute over subsidies to planemakers, which has led to World Trade Organization cases against Airbus and Boeing. The WTO awarded the United States the right in the Airbus case in October to impose tariffs on $7.5 billion of EU imports. It chooses to apply them to French wine, Scottish and Irish whiskies, olives and cheese from across the continent.

The European Union expects the WTO to grant it the right to retaliate in the Boeing subsidies case early next year.