EU Says Tariff Cuts Remain Its Priority Despite Trump’s Hawkish Stance

The European Commission said on Monday that it will bat for tariff cuts with the U.S. instead of engaging in a trade war, days after President Donald Trump announced plans to double levies on steel and aluminum imports into the country.

According to a Reuters report, the executive arm of the European Union stated this ahead of its Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic’s meeting with the U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer at an OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) meeting in Paris on Wednesday.

The EC’s technical team will meet with their U.S. counterparts in the States this week, according to the report.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had previously extended an olive branch to the U.S., offering zero-for-zero tariffs on industrial goods.

Von der Leyen said in April that the EU is ready for negotiations on tariffs, and the Commission’s spokesperson expressed a similar thought in a press conference on Monday.

They added that they don’t want to go down the tariff route, and instead of increasing them, would like to see them decrease and even eliminate them wherever possible.

“That remains the case, that remains our priority. We will be making that case strongly both at technical level and at political level this week,”  the spokesperson said.

The EU also indicated it strongly regretted President Trump’s plans to double steel tariffs.

Despite showing that it’s ready to negotiate, the EU is preparing its list of tariffs, which could be imposed on U.S. goods worth €95 billion (approximately $107.4 billion), covering a broad range of goods from industrial and agricultural products.

The European Commission stated that these tariffs would take effect if the EU’s trade talks with the U.S. fail and the Trump administration refuses to reduce levies on goods from Europe.

Amid these concerns, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), which tracks the S&P 500, was down 0.17% at the time of writing.

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Also See: Amazon Warned By German Antitrust Watchdog Over Price Controls