EU hits back at Trump tariffs and warns against trade war | Global News Avenue

In Brussels, it is after 06:00 on Wednesday. But it was midnight in Washington, D.C., when President Donald Trump’s 25% tariff on steel and aluminum came into effect on major U.S. trading partners.

The EU took less than 10 minutes to respond.

“Tariffs are taxes. They are bad for businesses and worse for consumers,” said Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission.

The EU’s initial countermeasures will take effect on US products on April 1. From jeans and motorcycles to peanut butter and bourbon whiskeyjust like their first tariffs in 2018 and 2020 in the Trump administration.

But there will be more in mid-April. According to a two-week consultation with stakeholders, the entire textile, household appliances, food and agricultural products can be included.

A list of items in circulation for nearly 100 pages, including meat, dairy, fruit, wine and spirits, toilets, wood, coats, swimsuits, night time, shoes, shoes, chandeliers and lawn mowers.

For consumers, higher prices on supermarket shelves in Europe are imminent, especially for American products. But there are real dangers for enterprises and certain industries, especially steel.

Dirk Jandura, head of the German Federation of Wholesale, Foreign Trade and Services, warned that Germans may have to delve into their pockets to pay for American products in supermarkets.

Orange juice, bourbon and peanut butter are the products that are most likely to be hit. “Trade profit margins are so low that companies cannot absorb,” he said.

The EU has a total of 26 billion euros (£22 billion) in terms of U.S. exports.

“We won’t make any assumptions except saying we’re always preparing for all these results,” said EU spokesman Olof Gill.

EU Council President António Costa called for the U.S. to be demoted, although there were few signs on Wednesday that Trump vowed to fight back against the EU’s countermeasures.

“We have been abused for a long time and we will stop abuse,” he said.

In Austria, people are also worried about escalation.

“The United States is the second most important export market for Austrian products and the most important export market for Germany,” said Christoph Neumayer, head of the Austrian Industry Federation. He added, “It is crucial that Europe must act decisively and decisively.”

A EU official pointed out that products such as soy and orange juice are easily sourced from Brazil or Argentina, so consumers will not be hit hard.

It has been suggested that under Republican control, some of the U.S. exports also come from U.S. countries: soybeans in Louisiana or meat from Nebraska and Kansas.

Relatively large U.S. exports enter the EU through the port of Rotterdam or Antwerp in Belgium.

Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs Dirk Beljaarts said no one benefited from the “tariff war”, but he hoped it wouldn’t be too difficult to hit his national economy: “It has an impact on companies and consumers, especially those in the United States.”

The area that will be particularly severely hit on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean is the beverage sector.

Pauline Bastidon of Spirits Europe said that EU and U.S. producers are united and face risks faced by European companies that have created our spirits and U.S. companies that have invested heavily in Europe.

Chris Swonger of the U.S. Distilling Spirit Council said that in the three years since the EU’s earlier 25% U.S. whiskey tax was suspended, American distillers “work hard to restore a solid foundation in our largest export markets.”

From April 1, reimbursement of tariffs is “very disappointing” and He called for a return to “zero” tariff.

For French cognac producers, the prospect of a 25% U.S. import tax is also a major concern, as most of their products are exported to the United States or China.

French producers have been hit by Chinese measures A large amount of taxes on cognac.

Bastien Brusaferro of the General Wine Union told France the information.

He said that in the Chaint area alone, thousands of jobs are at risk, saying: “Cognac is a product for export.”

The head of the European Steel Association Henrik Adam also had a terrible warning.

He warned: “President Trump’s ‘U.S. No. 1’ policy threatens to be the last nail in the European steel industry’s coffin.”

Trump’s initial tariffs on European steel in 2018 have put EU steel exports to the United States more than one million tons, without three tons of steel entering the United States, with two-thirds of the steel entering the European Union.

“These new measures Trump has taken are wider, so the impact of U.S. tariffs may be much greater.”