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The European Commission said yesterday it had offered a “zero-for-zero” tariff deal to avert a trade war with US President Donald Trump as EU ministers agreed to prioritise negotiations, while striking back with targeted countermeasures next week.
The 27-nation bloc faces 25 per cent import tariffs on steel and aluminium and cars and broader tariffs of 20pc from tomorrow for almost all other goods under Trump’s policy to hit countries he says impose high barriers to US imports.
Ministers overseeing trade met in Luxembourg yesterday to debate the EU’s response and discuss relations with China. Many said the priority was to launch negotiations to remove Trump’s tariffs, rather than fight them.
Michal Baranowski, deputy economy minister of Poland, told a Press conference after the meeting that his EU counterparts did not want to be “trigger-happy.”
EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic said discussions with Washington were at an early stage and that he had offered “zero-for-zero” tariffs for cars and other industrial products, expressing hope that discussions could begin.
However, Trump’s top trade adviser dismissed tech-billionaire Elon Musk’s push for “zero tariffs” between the US and Europe, calling the Tesla CEO a “car assembler” reliant on parts from other countries.
“While the EU remains open to – and strongly prefers – negotiation, we will not wait endlessly,” Sefcovic said, adding the bloc would push ahead with countermeasures and steps to avoid floods of diverted imports.
The EU is set to approve this week an initial set of countermeasures on up to $28 billion of imports from the US ranging from dental floss to diamonds, in response to Trump’s steel and aluminium tariffs rather than the broader levies.
But even that move has proven fraught, with Trump threatening a 200pc counter-tariff on EU alcoholic drinks if the bloc goes ahead with an earmarked 50pc duty on US bourbon. France and Italy, major exporters of wine and spirits, have expressed concern.
Sefcovic said the list was being finalised but would be smaller than initially envisaged because of EU country complaints. The bloc will start collecting the tariffs on April 15, with a second tranche starting a month later.
The bloc is expected to produce a larger package of countermeasures by the end of April, as a response to US car and broader tariffs.
Sefcovic made clear the EU was ready to consider all retaliatory options. One is the EU’s Anti-Coercion Instrument, which allows it to target US services or to limit US companies’ access to EU public procurement tenders.
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