US widens trade war; slaps 25 percent tariffs on European goods, 10 percent on Airbus

The United States on Wednesday said it would slap 10 percent tariffs on European-made Airbus planes and 25 percent duties on French wine, Scotch and Irish whiskies, and cheese from across the continent as punishment for illegal EU aircraft subsidies.

The announcement came after the World Trade Organization gave Washington a green light to impose tariffs on $7.5 billion worth of EU goods annually in the long-running case, a move that threatens to ignite a tit-for-tat transatlantic trade war.

The measures would follow tariffs levied by the United States and China on hundreds of billions of dollars of each other's goods in their more than year-old trade war.