The European Union has spent months for painful rates from the United States, the most important trading partner of the block. On Wednesday, when the American steel and aluminum rates of 25 percent came into force, European officials started responding.
While the United States buy the most steel and aluminum from countries such as Canada, Brazil and Mexico, Germany is a remarkable steel producer.
And because the rates also influence products that contain steel and aluminum, such as cooking utensils and window frames, the European Union said, they can get around 26 billion euros – $ 28 billion – off the block.
Wednesday's refutation is the European Union's attempt to hit back to the same extent.
The reaction comes from two parts. The European Union had increased rates for a series of goods as a retribution for American measures during the first term of President Trump, but they were suspended under the Biden government.
That suspension may expire on 1 April, which means that higher rates would take effect on billions of products with boats, bourbon and motorcycles.
The second step of the block would, it said, would be to place rates at € 18 billion in extra products. Representatives from countries throughout Europe will consult for two weeks before civil servants close the list of products that would be affected.
Items proposed for inclusion are industrial and agricultural, including household appliances, poultry and beef. The aim is to have those new measures in mid -April.
The announcement was the opening movement of Europe in a unfolding trade conflict – one that is generally expected to intensify in the coming month.
For the block, the American steel and aluminum rates are just the beginning of what the Lord Trump has promised. He has repeatedly said that he would set a wide rates for US trading partners for US trading partners in 2 April. He has suggested that taxes on cars can be 25 percent in particular, a figure that would be painful for German and Italian car manufacturers.
“We are now in this escalating spiral,” said Carsten Brzeski, worldwide head of macro research at the bank.
On the one hand, the European Union does not want to escalate the trade war. Officials want the United States to continue to negotiate with them. European civil servants have called rates 'economically counterproductive', warning that a tit-by-tat rate fight would harm everyone.
“Rates are taxes,” said Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, the Executive Arm of the Block, in a statement on Wednesday. “Jobs are at stake, prices up, nobody needs that.”
But the Trump government is reluctant to negotiate, which encourages European policymakers to take a more aggressive attitude.
“I traveled to the US last month; I was looking for a constructive dialogue to prevent unnecessary pain of measures and countermeasures, “said Maros Sefcovic, the top trading officer for the European Commission, during a press conference on Monday. “Ultimately, as it is said, one hand cannot clap. The American administration does not seem to be entering into a deal. “
He added: “While the US watches over its interests, including the European Union.”
Mr Trump's rates come at a difficult moment for the European economy. After a few years of marking growth, companies are now staring at the Blok prospect of deteriorating trade conditions that can harm their overseas activities.
For example, groups that represent the German steel industry have said that the rates come in an 'unlimited time' when producers in the European Union are already dealing with a stream of cheap competition from China.
At least Europe is not surprised. A trade -oriented group within the European Union, popularly called the 'Trump Task Force', spent a large part of last year preparing various trade conflict scenarios.
But it was difficult for Europeans – and other American trading partners – to decide how to respond to the threat of rates. It is not clear what the goals of Mr Trump are or which will eventually be retained, because the Trump government has made the habit of threatening and then returning, at least temporarily.
“It is difficult to know what lingers and what will not linger,” says Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, which recently organized an event with Mr. Sefcovic.
European officials also have difficulty getting their American counterparts on the phone. Since his inauguration, Mrs. Von der Leyen has not spoken individually with Mr. Trump.
Asked at a press conference on Sunday when she could talk to him, she said, “We will have a personal meeting when time is right.”
Kaja Kallas, the most important diplomat of the Blok, would meet Marco Rubio, the State Secretary of the US State at the end of February, in Washington, but Mr Rubio canceled that meeting.
And diplomats from the entire European Union and its Member States have difficulty determining who they should talk to in the Trump government, partly because they have no clarity about how decisions are made.
“I think there is a level of consternation on the objectives of the administration,” said Jörn Fleck, senior director at the Europe Center of the Atlantic Council, research institution established in Washington.
And he said that Europe might be more struggling to respond in a world in which the United States does not just want to close a deal – but rather the worldwide trading order want to repair fundamentally so that more is produced in the United States.
“Maybe there is no deal to close,” he said.
