In London, Rome and Warsaw
It was only after 06:00 in Brussels on Wednesday. But she was midnight in Washington, when 25% of Tariff President Donald Trump on Steel and Aluminum came into force on the main American trade partners.
It took less than 10 minutes for the European Union to answer.
“Tariffs are taxes. They’re bad for work, and worse for consumers,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Initial EU countermeasures will enter into force on US products on April 1, ranging from jeans and motorcycles to peanut butter and bourbon butterJust as they were with the first tariffs of Trump administration in 2018 and 2020.
But it will come back in mid -April. The whole part of textiles, home devices, food and agricultural products could be included, depending on a two -week consultation with stakeholders.
The list of objects of almost 100 pages on which there are meat, dairy products, fruits, wine and fierce, toilet seats, wood, coats, swimwear, night guard, shoes, chandeliers and mowers.
For consumers, higher prices are on European supermarket shelves, especially for US products. But for companies and some industries, especially steel, there is a real danger.
The head of the German BGA Federation of Wholesale, Foreign Trade and Service, Dirk Jandura, warned that the Germans may have to dig deeper into their pockets to pay US products in supermarkets.
Orange juice, bourbon and peanut butter were the most likely products affected. “The trade margins are so low that the companies cannot absorb it,” he said.
A total of EU will target € 26 billion (£ 22 billion) by US exports.
“We will not go into hypothetics except to say that we are preparing for all these outcomes,” said EU spokesman Olof Gill.
António Costa, President of the EU Council, has called on the US to deescalal, although there were few signs on Wednesday, as Trump vowed to reciprocate the EU counter-arts.
“We have been abused for a long time and we will no longer be abused,” he said.
In Austria, there was concern about escalation.
“The second is the second most important export market of Austrian products after Germany – and most importantly for Germany,” said Christoph Neumayer, head of the Austrian industry Federation. It was “important that Europe works together and decisively,” he added.
One EU official pointed out that products such as soy and orange juice can easily be obtained from Brazil or Argentina, so consumers would not be too affected.
And there was a proposal that some of the targeted US exports were from the US states under the Republican control: soybean from Louisiana or Meat from Nebraska and Kansas.
A relatively large number of US exports enter the EU through the Netherlands port Rotterdam or Antwerp in Belgium.
The Dutch Minister of Economics Dirk Beyaarts said no one had benefited from “Tariff’s war”, but hoped he would not be too difficult to hit the economy of his country: “It affects companies and consumers – especially consumers in the US.”
One area that will especially hit on both sides of the Atlantic is in the drink sector.
Pauline Bastidon of Spirits Europe said that manufacturers in the EU and the US stood united, with the risks facing European companies that produced American spirits and US companies that were invested in Europe.
Chris Swanger, from the US Council for Distilled Pentecost, said that in three years since the suspension earlier 25% of EU Tariffs on US whiskey, US distillers “worked hard to regain its solid basics on our largest export market.”
Tariff’s re -on April 1st was “deeply disappointing” and He called for the return of “Zero-Zero-Zero” tariffs.
For cognac manufacturers in France, the possibility of imports of imports of 25% in the US is also the main problem because most of their export products, whether in the US or China.
French manufacturers have already hit Chinese measures who stunned large cognac taxes.
“The morale is down on the deposits,” said Bastien Brusaferro of the Union General Winegrowers for France.
Thousands of jobs are only in the Charente region, he says, “Konak is a product made for export.”
There were also terrible warnings from the head of the European Steel Association, Henry Adam.
“The politics of Trump President ‘American First’ threatens to be the final nail in the coffin of the European Steel Industry,” he warned.
Trump’s initial tariffs at the European Steel in 2018 noted that Steel Steel had fallen by more than one million tons, and for every three tons of steel that did not enter the US, two -thirds from him entered the EU.
“These new measures that Trump introduced are more extensive, so the influence of US tariffs is likely to be far greater.”
