Kerrygold  owner Ornua hopes to boost US sales after a breakthrough in a long-running transatlantic trade war.

EU and US trade chiefs agreed yesterday  to suspend tariffs on billions of euros worth of goods, including Irish butter and cheese, for five years.

The 17-year-old dispute over subsidies to aircraft manufacturers Airbus and Boeing has cost Ornua €50m in tariffs, which were passed on to US consumers in higher prices.

“We welcome today’s decision to prolong the suspension of punitive tariffs on Kerrygold in the US,” said Ornua CEO John Jordan.

“The removal of tariffs represents a unique opportunity for continued growth and further investment in the US market in line with our ambitious growth strategy.”

Ornua is responsible for 90pc of EU butter exports to the US. Despite the tariffs, Kerrygold managed to grow its exports to the US in 2020 on the back of a rise in home baking during the pandemic.

The breakthrough came in the margins of the first EU-US summit since President Joe Biden took office.

US trade representative Katherine Tai said the two sides had “converted a legalistic fighting relationship into one that is more agile, cooperative and that is able to harness the political will to work together”.

She said she was confident that the dispute would be permanently resolved within the five-year lifespan of the tariff suspension.

“My confidence is high that we have resolved these disputes because we are putting away our litigation briefcases and we have committed to each other to sit down at the table,” she told reporters in Brussels.

The two sides have turned their attention instead to China, which has seen a recent boom in aircraft manufacturing led by the state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China.

“It’s in both our interests to ensure there is not only a level playing field between Airbus and Boeing but globally, in the area of large civil aircraft manufacturing, especially with the view of potential emerging competition from non-market economies,” said European Commission vice-president and trade chief Valdis Dombrovskis.

As part of Tuesday’s agreement, the US will suspend tariffs that have ratcheted up the cost of EU goods such as aircraft, wines, spirits, dairy and machinery by $2.2bn (€1.8bn).

The EU has agreed to end duties on 130 US imports, including aircraft, tobacco, spirits, handbags and tractors, at a cost of $1.1bn (€907m).

Both sides have agreed to avoid harmful subsidies, R&D funding and tax breaks for civil aircraft companies while they work out a lasting solution via a new transatlantic working group.

The Airbus-Boeing dispute is the longest-running fight in World Trade Organisation history, and dates back to 2004 when the US filed a complaint against EU subsidies to airspace giant Airbus. The bloc then filed a counter-suit against US subsidies to Boeing.

The two sides are still working out a compromise in a separate steel and aluminium dispute that threatened to impact on US-owned Irish whiskey makers.