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The EU announced that it regrets US President Donald Trump’s decision to hit Canada, Mexico and China Tariff reconciliationAnd he said it would answer it firmly if a threat would be fulfilled that he would expand trade measures to Europe.
Trump has encouraged a Global trade war This weekend, announcing measures against the three largest American trading partners after the EU, which has the largest trade deficit with Washington. The Trump administration has so far refrain from imposing EU tariffs, despite the fact that the US president said on Friday that he would “absolutely” do it.
The EU Executive Business spokesman said that the trade and investment relationship of the block with the US is the largest in the world, adding: “It’s a lot of concern.”
“Tariff measures over the ship increase business expenses, harm workers and consumers,” a spokesman said. “Tariffs create unnecessary economic disorders and trigger inflation. They hurt on all sides. “
“At this point, we are not aware that any additional tariffs are imposed on EU products,” the Commission said on Sunday. “However, the EU would firmly respond to any commercial partner who is unjustly or arbitrarily imposing tariffs to EU goods.”
EU officials have started making plans for unforeseen situations for Trump’s trade war last summer.
The initial approach was to negotiate areas where the EU could buy more American products, such as liquefied natural gas, and narrowing the trade deficit that the president regularly deviates. Some capital are also concerned with promises to increase their consumption for national defense in an effort to calm Trump, who wants NATO members to spend 5 percent of GDP on their army.
If all these efforts are failing, the Commission’s trade department has spent months making lists of American imports, which could hit duties of 50 percent or more. Brussels kept details of this retaliation in secret so as not to cause Trump.
In addition to hearing for Trump’s certificates appointed in Washington, the EU trade commissioner, Maros Sefcvich, “stands ready to engage as soon as his colleagues are confirmed,” said the EU official.
Klaas Knot, a member of the European Central Bank’s Governing Council, said on Sunday that he expects countries to take revenge on US measures and exacerbate a trade war That would damage all sides.
“Europe will not want to be pushed around. We are also a powerful trade block with 400 million consumers,” Knot, president of the Dutch Central Bank, said for Dutch television on Sunday.
Trump has imposed on the tariff of blankets against Canada and Mexico, referring to the International Economic Power Law for Emergency Cases, which allows him to take measures in response to a “unusual and extraordinary threat.”
He would have to find a justification to potentially use the same tool against the EU or use tariffs that target certain industrial sectors on security bases, as he did during his first presidency.
