BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union’s govt fee stated Thursday it’ll put commerce retaliation measures on maintain for 90 days to match President Donald Trump’s pause on his sweeping new tariffs and depart room for a negotiated answer.
European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen stated that the fee, which handles commerce for the bloc’s 27 member nations, “took note of the announcement by President Trump.”
New tariffs on 20.9 billion euros ($23 billion) of US items can be placed on maintain for 90 days as a result of “we want to give negotiations a chance,” she stated in a press release.
However she warned: “If negotiations are not satisfactory, our countermeasures will kick in.”
Trump imposed a 20% levy on items from the EU as a part of his onslaught of tariffs of 10% and upward in opposition to world buying and selling companions however stated Wednesday he’ll pause them for 90 days to provide nations an opportunity to barter options to U.S. commerce considerations.
International locations topic to the pause will face Trump’s 10% baseline tariff.
Earlier than Trump’s announcement, EU member nations voted to approve a set of retaliatory tariffs on $23 billion in items in response to his 25% tariffs on imported metal and aluminum that took impact in March. The EU, the most important buying and selling companion of the U.S., described them as “unjustified and damaging.”
The EU tariffs had been set to enter impact in levels, some on April 15 and others on Might 15 and Dec. 1. The EU fee didn’t instantly present a listing of the products.
Members of the EU — the world’s largest buying and selling bloc — have stated they like a negotiated deal to resolve a commerce struggle that damages the economies on either side. The bloc’s high commerce official has shuttled between Brussels and Washington for weeks attempting to go off a battle. The EU has supplied Trump a “zero for zero” deal during which either side would get rid of tariffs on industrial items together with autos. Trump has stated that’s not sufficient to reply U.S. considerations and raised the potential for Europe shopping for giant extra quantities of U.S. liquefied pure fuel.
The focused items are a tiny fraction of the 1.6 trillion euros ($1.8 trillion) in U.S.-EU annual commerce. Some 4.4 billion euros in items and providers crosses the Atlantic every day in what the European Fee calls “the most important commercial relationship in the world.”
The EU has focused smaller lists of products in hopes of exerting political stress and avoiding financial harm from a wider escalation of tit-for-tat tariffs.
The EU can also be engaged on an additional set of countermeasures in response to Trump’s blanket 20% tariff on all European items, now suspended. That might embrace measures geared toward U.S. tech firms and the providers sector in addition to commerce in items.
Nonetheless, von der Leyen stated that Europe intends to diversify its commerce partnerships.
She stated that the EU will proceed “engaging with countries that account for 87% of global trade and share our commitment to a free and open exchange of goods, services, and ideas,” and to carry boundaries to commerce inside its personal single market.
“Together, Europeans will emerge stronger from this crisis,” von der Leyen stated.
McHugh reported from Frankfurt, Germany
