European Union officials are taking a two-part approach to President Trump’s unfolding trade war, offering to slash tariffs on American-made cars and industrial products even as they prepare to retaliate imminently with wide-ranging levies.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the E.U.’s executive branch, said on Monday that the 27-nation bloc would be willing to employ a “zero-for-zero” approach on products including cars, eliminating tariffs on the goods if the United States did the same. E.U. car tariffs are currently set at 10 percent.
But at the same time, both she and the E.U. trade commissioner, Maros Sefcovic, made it clear that European officials were preparing to deploy tariffs and, potentially, other trade barriers to hit back at the United States if the two sides could not reach a deal. Those tariffs are set to begin within days.
European Union officials circulated on Monday evening in Brussels a list of products that they plan to hit with retaliatory tariffs, said Olof Gill, trade spokesman for the European Commission, the bloc’s executive branch. Representatives from across the bloc’s member states are expected to vote on that list on Wednesday. If approved, the fresh tariffs would take force in two waves — one on April 15, the second a month later.
Officials did not immediately make the list public.
The tariffs would mark the E.U.’s first concrete reaction to Mr. Trump’s volley of recent trade measures. They would specifically respond to U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs that took effect in mid-March, and officials have said they would be only a first step. European policymakers are contemplating how to react to Mr. Trump’s subsequent moves, including his 25 percent tariffs on automobiles and the 20 percent across-the-board tariff on E.U. goods that he announced last week.
The bloc’s first set of retaliatory tariffs was expected to be sweeping, though somewhat dialed back from what was originally planned.
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