We don’t have to marry with America / day

I understand that it is difficult to predict the effect of US President Donald Trump’s tariff war on the European Union, so Latvia has not yet been exposed and there is no consequence. However, given our export volume and the US exporting industry, what would be the worst scenario that the Ministry of Economics (EM) is preparing for?

At the moment, following the development of events, I do not see any negative development scenario for Latvia at all. The wood and product industry, which has the highest proportion of our exports to the US, will not be affected by these tariffs, and the value -added chain of other exporters does not play a crucial role, and most likely America will continue to buy these products, only at a more expensive price. So that this US tariffs have no significant impact on our exports.
But what is important is that all this has made the European Union (EU) to shake and start moving at completely different speeds in search of where we could find the market for goods, and grouping in various alliances to talk to other big economies. Because – what is we an alternative? Either arguing with America, which is not right, given that it is our strategic partner, or just look for new outlets to sell their products.

But what is currently being heard from the European Commission as a possible solution is to introduce double -sided zero tariffs with the US. The EU has to sit down with the Americans at one table as soon as possible and talk about the settings that each side wants to achieve. We must also condemn Trump, who has recently been elected and fulfilled the things promised to the voters. We need to be treated with understanding, and perhaps discussions can be achieved by mutually beneficial solutions, as the US and European economies are extremely linked to each other, not to mention the military cooperation so important to us.

Then, in your opinion, the position of Latvia when the EU judge the overall response to the US Global Tariff War, would it be – no trade wars with Americans? Because there is also a political component, for example, the fact that tariff raising does not affect Russia.

We haven’t had a discussion on this yet in government. At the moment, I only express my position.

But with the Foreign Minister and the prime minister, have you at least discussed this topic?

Of course, we have discussed, and in any case, we do not have a position inside that someone would believe that we have to answer with response tariffs. Of course, it would be a lightweight scenario, but if we did something like that, we would automatically harm our own companies. Not to mention that the US is our ally.