The European Union spent months for painful tariffs from the United States, block The most important A trade partner. On Wednesday, as US steel and aluminum tariffs of 25 percent entered into forceEuropean officials have begun to respond.
While the United States is buying the most steel and aluminum from countries, including Canada, Brazil and Mexico, Germany is a significant steel producer.
And since the tariffs will also affect products containing steel and aluminum, such as cooking frame and windows, The European Union saidIt may hit around € 26 billion – $ 28 billion – a total block export.
The rebuttal on Wednesday is an attempt to return the European Union to the same extent.
The answer will come in two parts. The European Union increased the tariffs to a series of goods in retaliation with US measures during the first term of President Trump, but were suspended under the management of Biden.
This suspension will be allowed to break through April 1, which means that larger tariffs would enter into force on billions of products that include ships, bourbon and motorcycles.
The second step of the block, it is said, would be to place the tariff on additional products worth 18 billion euros. Representatives of countries across Europe will be advised for two weeks before the officers complete the list of products to which they would influence.
Proposed items They are industrial and agricultural, including home appliances, poultry and beef. The goal is to have these new measures in effect by mid -April.
The announcement was an introductory move in Europe in a widespread trade conflict – one that is widely expected to be reinforced during the month ahead.
For the block, American steel and aluminum tariffs are just the beginning of what Mr. Trump promised. He repeatedly said he would Set wide tariffs About US trade partners globally as early as April 2. Suggested that you charge on cars can be particularly 25 percentA character that would be painful for German and Italian car manufacturers.
“We are now in this escalating spiral,” said Carsten Brzeski, a global chief of macro research at Bank Ing.
On the one hand, the European Union does not want to escalate a trade war. Officials want the United States to continue to negotiate with them. European officials called the tariffs “economically counterproductive“The warning that the fight with the Tariff of Tit-for-Tat would hurt everyone involved.
“Tariffs are taxes,” Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, an executive hand, said in a statement on Wednesday. “Jobs are at stake, prices up, no one needs it.”
But Trump’s administration is reluctant to negotiate, which encourages European creators of politics to take a more aggressive attitude.
“I traveled to the US last month; I was looking for constructive dialogue to avoid unnecessary pain from measures and countermeasures, “said Maros Sefcovic, the main trade official of the European Commission, during a journalist briefing on Monday. “In the end, as is said, one hand cannot clap. The US administration seems to be dealing with agreement.”
He added, “Just as they monitor their interests now, so is the European Union.”
Mr. Trump’s tariffs come at a difficult time for the European economy. After several years of marked marked, companies across the block are now looking at the prospect of worsening trade conditions that could harm their foreign business.
Groups representing the German steel industry, for example, they said That the tariffs come at “inappropriate time”, when manufacturers in the European Union are already engaged in a flood of cheap competition coming from China.
Europe at least not caught by surprise. A group aimed at trade within the European Union, colloquially called “Trump Working Group”, spent most of last year Preparation for various scenarios of trade conflicts.
But it was difficult for Europeans – to other American trade partners – to decide how to respond to the threat of tariffs. It is not clear what the goals of Mr. Trump or who will ultimately be retained, because Trump’s administration has created a habit of threats and then, at least temporarily, reclaimed.
“It’s hard to know what to stick to and what he won’t hold on,” said Michael Strin, director of economic policy studies at the American Institute of Enterprise in Washington, who recently hosted events with Mr. Sefcovic.
European officials also fought to get their American colleagues on the phone. Mrs. von der Leyen did not speak individually with Mr. Trump from his inauguration.
When asked at a press conference on Sunday, when she could talk to him, she said, “We will have a personal meeting when the time comes.”
Kaja Kallas, the main diplomat of the block, was supposed to meet with Marc Rubio, US Secretary -General, in Washington at the end of February, but Mr. Rubio canceled that meeting.
And diplomats from all over the European Union and Member States have fought that they identify who they should talk to in Trump’s administration, in part because they lack clarity in the decision -making method.
“I think there is a level of astonishment at the goals of the administration,” said Jörn Fleck, a higher director of the European Center in the Atlantic Council, Washington based in Washington.
And he said that Europe can fight more to respond in a world where the United States does not want to simply conclude an agreement – but wants to basically rearrange the global trade order in order to produce more in the United States.
“There may be no job,” he said.
