The European Union is unlikely to give an immediate response to the introduction of new tariffs by the administration of US President Donald Trump, which is expected on Wednesday, the European publication Politico reported.
Brussels is likely to need time to analyze the new set of measures Washington will take, according to officials familiar with the situation. They specified that EU ambassadors will meet on April 3 before a summit of EU trade ministers scheduled for Monday.
Politico earlier reported that US tariffs on imports from EU countries could reach 20-25%. The former head of the EU delegation for trade negotiations with the US, Ignacio Garcia Bersero, told the publication that in this way Trump is “trying to completely destroy the global trade order“. “The economic effect of increasing tariffs from very low levels to 20-25% will be huge. “We will have a huge amount of disruption”, he said.
As Trump announced earlier, on April 2 his administration intends to introduce new trade tariffs that will affect “all countries”. Trump has said the US tariffs will be much milder than those previously imposed by other countries on American exports.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, speaking at a session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday, said the EU expected new US tariffs, which could be imposed from April 2, on European semiconductors, medical products and timber. She added that the EC had prepared a package of tough measures in response to the US tariffs but did not want to implement them yet, hoping to negotiate from a position of strength, and stressed that the EU intended to strengthen the unity of its internal market.