EU returns to Trump’s rates and warns against the trade war

In Brussels it was shortly after 6:00 on Wednesday. But it was midnight in Washington, when 25% of President Donald Trump’s rates for steel and aluminum joined the major US trading partners.

It took less than 10 minutes to respond to the European Union.

“Tariffs are taxes. They are bad for business and consumers,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

The initial EU counteraction measures will come into force on US products on April 1, ranging from jeans and motorcycles to peanut butter and bourbonJust as they were with the first tariffs of the Trump Administration in 2018 and 2020.

But there will be back in mid -April. A whole part of textiles, home appliances, food and agricultural products may be included, depending on two -week consultation with stakeholders.

A list of items is circulated almost 100 pages, which have meat, dairy products, fruits, wine and spirits, toilet seats, wood, coats, swimwear, nightgowns, shoes, chandeliers and odds.

For consumers, the higher prices appear on the shelves of supermarkets in Europe, especially for American products. But for business and some industries, especially steel, there is a real danger.

The head of the German BGA wholesale, foreign trade and service Federation, Dirk Jandura, warned that the Germans may have to dig deeper into their pockets to pay for US products in supermarkets.

Orange juice, bourbon and peanut butter were the most likely products to be hit. “Trade margins are so low that this cannot be swallowed up by companies,” he said.

A total of EU will head to € 26 billion (€ 22 billion) from US exports.

“We will not go into hypothetics, except to say that we are preparing hard for all these results,” said EU spokesman Olof Gil.

Antonio Costa, the chairman of the EU Council, called on the US to de -escalate, although there was a small sign on Wednesday, as Trump promised to hit the EU counteraction.

“We have long been abused and will no longer be abused,” he said.

In Austria and Austria, there was concern about escalation.

“The United States is the second most important export market for Austrian products after Germany -and the most important for Germany,” said Christoph Naimyer, who is the head of the Austrian Industries Federation. “It was essential for Europe to act together and decisively,” he added.

An EU employee pointed out that products such as soy and orange juice can be easily obtained from Brazil or Argentina so that users will not be affected too much.

And there was a suggestion that some of the target exports of the United States are also from states of US under republican control: soybean from Louisiana or Nebraska and Kansas meat.

A relatively large number of US exports enter the EU through the Dutch port of Rotterdam or Antwerp in Belgium.

Dutch Economic Minister Dirk Beljards said that no one had benefited from the Tariff War, but he hoped he would not hit his own country’s economy too hard: “This has an impact on companies and consumers – especially US users.”

An area that will be hit especially on both sides of the Atlantic is in the beverage sector.

Pauline Bastidon of alcohol drinks Europe said that producers in the EU and the United States were united, with risks facing European companies that produced US spirits and US companies that were heavily invested in Europe.

Chris Sunger of the Council of American Distilled Spirits said that for the three years after the EU’s more 25% of the EU’s 25% tariff was stopped, American distillers “worked hard to regain the solid base of our largest export market.”

Recovery of tariffs of April 1 was “deeply disappointing” and He called for a return to the zero zero ratesS

For cognac manufacturers in France, the 25% import tax in the United States is also a major problem, since the greater part of their production is for export, either for the US or for China.

French producers are already affected by Chinese measures who have clasped heavy taxes on the cognac.

“Morale is down in landfills,” Bastien Brusfero of the Union of General Winemakers before France Info said.

Thousands of jobs are laid only in the Charnte area, he says, “Cognac is a product that is made for export.”

There was also a terrible warning from the head of the European Steel Association Henrik Adam.

“President Trump’s First” policy of the first one threatens to be the last nail in the ark of the European steel industry, “he warned.

Trump’s initial tariffs for European steel in 2018. EU steel exports to the United States falls with more than a million tonnes and for every three tonnes of steel that did not enter the United States, two -thirds of it entered the EU.

“These new measures, imposed by Trump, are more revealing, and therefore the impact of US tariffs will probably be much more.”