The European Union (EU) has announced that on January 1, 2005, it will lift penalties that have affected glass manufacturers and metal fabricators since March, when the sanctions were levied against hundreds of U.S. exports in retaliation for the government's failure to repeal a corporate tax break that had been ruled illegal at the World Trade

Organization, according to an article in USA Today. The decision was based on Congress' passage of a corporate tax bill signed last week by President Bush.

According to the article, Guardian Industries, of Auburn Hills, Mich., had been concerned enough about the tariffs to look at supplying Europe from a non-U.S. plant. The company sells to Volkswagen, Audi, General Motors and Ford in Europe with windows made from raw glass produced in Floreffe, Pa., near Pittsburgh, and Carlton, Mich., near Detroit. The EU tariffs prompted Guardian to consider shifting production to its Thailand plant to avoid the penalties.

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