New counter-customs plans: EU is preparing for escalation with the USA

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, sweet potatoes and whiskey if 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 runs in it, which US President Donald Trump has set for the 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 EU sees US tariffs as not justified

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.

List is to be discussed

Machines, car and aircraft parts, chemicals, as well as whiskey as well as whiskey and wine from the USA could also be affected by additional tariffs. 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.

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 products such as jeans, bourbon whiskey, motorcycles and peanut butter is planned for a long time and no longer controversial.

EU trade commissioner warns of possible other US tariffs

Last had EU trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič 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, additional exports worth 170 billion euros would be affected.

This means that a total of around 549 billion euros in EU exports in the United States are occupied with tariffs and thus 97 percent of exports, said Šefčovič. 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.