On Wednesday, the European Union announced on Wednesday a commercial action of reprisals with new tasks on American industrial and agricultural products, responding within a few hours to the increase in the Trump administration of prices on all imports of steel and 25%aluminum.
The largest commercial block in the world awaited the American prices and prepared in advance, but the measures are still exerting great pressure on transatlantic relations already tense. Washington warned Europe last month that it should take care of its own security in the future.
EU measures will cover the goods of the United States worth 26 billion euros ($ 40 billion CDN) – and not only steel and aluminum products. Textiles, household appliances, agricultural goods will be struck by prices, just like motorcycles, bourbon, peanut butter and jeans, the latter were also taxed during the first mandate of American president Donald Trump.
EU tasks are targeting pressure points in the United States while minimizing additional damage to Europe. Prices – import taxes – mainly target the states of the Republican, hitting soybeans in Louisiana of the president of the Mike Johnson Chamber, as well as beef and poultry in Kansas and Nebraska. The products in Alabama, Georgia and Virginia are also on the list.
The European Commission, which manages commercial and commercial conflicts on behalf of the 27 EU member countries, said that leather items and agricultural products beyond beef and poultry would be affected, including seafood, nuts, eggs, sugar and vegetables.
Prices “not in our common interest”
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said in a statement that the block “will always remain open to negotiations”.
“While the United States applies prices worth $ 28 billion, we respond with countermeasures worth 26 billion euros,” she said. “We firmly believe that in a world loaded with geopolitical and economic uncertainties, it is not in our common interest to load our economies with prices.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met the head of NATO and EU officials in Brussels, hoping to stimulate business and political ties while Canada is watching a possible trade war with the United States.
Trump said his taxes would help create jobs in the American factory, but Von Der Leyen said: “The jobs are at stake. Prices will increase. In Europe and the United States.”
“We regret deeply on this measure. The prices are taxes. They are bad for business and even worse for consumers. These prices disrupt the supply chains. They bring uncertainty for the economy,” she said.
The US Chamber of Commerce has said that US prices and EU countermeasures will only harm jobs, prosperity and security on both sides of the Atlantic “.
“The two parties must defuse and find an urgent negotiated result,” said the room on Wednesday.
A rehearsal of the 1st term of Trump
Trump slapped Similar prices on the EU Steel and aluminum during his first mandate, which rapped European and others allies. The EU also imposed countermeasures in retaliation at the time.
This time, the action of the EU will imply two stages. First of all, on April 1, the Commission reintroduced what it calls “rebalancing measures”, which the EU had EU from 2018 and 2020, but was then suspended as part of the Biden administration. On April 13, additional rights targeting 18 billion euros ($ 19.6 billion) in US exports to the block.
Many apparent topping on the part of the American president Donald Trump gave the public and politicians of Canada a case of cervical boost while they are trying to sail in the current trade war. The political commentator, author and editor of speeches by former president George W. Bush, David Frum, stops in power and politics to reflect on sustainable potential damage to the Canadian-American relationship and weighs on what he thinks could take place in Trump’s head.
EU’s commerce commissioner Maros Sefcovic went to Washington last month to leave the prices, meeting the US Secretary for Commerce Howard Lutnick and other senior trade officials.
He said on Wednesday that he had become clear during the trip “that the EU was not the problem”.
“I have argued to avoid the unnecessary burden on measures and countermeasures, but you need a partner for this. You need both hands to applaud,” Sefcovic told journalists in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France.
Soupperie of European steel companies for losses
The EU could lose up to 3.7 million tonnes of steel exports, according to the Eurofer European Steel Association. The United States is the second largest export market for EU steel producers, representing 16% of total EU steel exports.
The EU estimates that the annual commercial volume between the two parties is around 1.5 billion of US dollars, which represents around 30% of world trade. Although the block has a surplus of substantial export in goods, it says that this is partly compensated by the American surplus in the trade in services.
Great Britain, which is not part of the EU, has awaiting that it would not impose its own reprisals in the United States
