Commercial war: EU threatens to other tariffs on US products

In the trade conflict with the United States, the European Commission is preparing further special tariffs for US exports worth up to 95 billion euros. These additional taxes could be raised on industrial and agricultural products such as cars, planes, sweet potatoes and whiskey, negotiations with Washington should not lead to a solution, as can be seen from a statement by the Brussels authority.

The month of July is currently the period for this. A 90-day period is running in him that US President Donald Trump has set for EU offers. If these are not enough for him, he wants to raise extensive new special tariffs on imports from the EU. They would be added to the special tariffs that are already applicable.

The US President wants to correct alleged trade weights with the tariffs and shift production to the United States. At the same time, customs revenues should serve to at least partially counter its expensive election promise of large tax cuts.

The EU, on the other hand, sees the tariff as not justified and incompatible with the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Therefore, she wants to strike back, should there be no mutual agreement.

“The EU is still determined to come with the USA. At the same time, you prepare for all possibilities.

In addition to cars, aircraft and vehicle parts, the Commission list contains numerous agricultural products, raw materials and mechanical devices. It ranges from turkey, salmon and Brussels sprouts to crude oil and coal to dentistry devices, condoms and human hair for wigs. The more than 200 pages long list of products that could be documented with tariffs from the Commission’s point of view should now be discussed publicly and by the economy. An EU official in Brussels emphasized.

At the same time, hope is that the list will also be analyzed in the USA and export -oriented companies are pushing the government in Washington to reach an agreement with the EU.

In parallel to the preparation of new possible counter-tariffs, the EU Commission wants to sue the United States because of the tariffs at WTO, as the authority continued to say. There, the dispute settlement committee then sets up an expert committee that assesses whether the tariffs violate WTO rules.

In addition to the additional taxes, the Commission is also considering EU export restrictions for certain products worth 4.4 billion euros in this case. This includes steel scrap and chemical products, which US companies have so far liked to import.

In the event of a failure of negotiations, the reintroduction of special EU special tariffs such as jeans, bourbon whiskey, motorcycles and peanut butter has been in the event of a failure of negotiations.

Most recently, EU trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic had warned of possible other US tariffs in European goods. Washington is currently conducting several studies and justifying them with national security, said the top politician on Tuesday in a speech in the European Parliament in Strasbourg. If all of these investigations lead to tariffs, exports worth 170 billion euros would also be affected.

This means that a total of around 549 billion euros of EU exports in the United States are occupied with tariffs and thus 97 percent of exports, said Sefcovic. That would be “a huge extent”. In concrete terms, the US investigations are about semiconductors, medicines and raw materials.

In order to defuse the trade dispute, the EU has already offered the United States an agreement for the mutual cancellation of all tariffs to industrial goods. So far, the Trump government has not responded to this.

In addition to customs deals, new agreements are an option. According to the EU Commission, the EU and Trump could, for example, conclude a new deal to expand American exports of liquefied gas (LNG). It would also be possible to import more military technology and agricultural goods in order to reduce the US trade deficit with the EU.

Note: This article has been updated and further information was added.