European Union hit back on trump tariff and warns against business war

In Brussels, it was only after 06:00 on Wednesday. But it was midnight at Washington DC when President Donald Trump’s steel and 25% tariff on aluminum affected the major American trading partners.

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

European Commission Chairman Ursula von Der Leyen said, “Tariffs are bad. They are bad for business, and are worse for consumers.”

The European Union’s initial counters will be effective on US products on 1 April, From jeans and motorbikes to peanut butter and borbanLike he was with the first tariff of Trump administration in 2018 and 2020.

But there will be much more to come in mid -April. Clothing, home appliances, food and agricultural products can be included in a complete swath of fabrics, food and agricultural products based on two weeks of consultation with stakeholders.

A list of about 100 pages items is being operated which includes meat, dairy, fruits, wine and souls, toilet seats, wood, coats, swimwear, nightdress, shoes, chandeliers and lawnmower.

For consumers, high prices on Europe’s supermarket shelves, especially for American products. But businesses and some industries, especially for steel, have a real danger.

The head of Germany’s BGA Federation of Holcell, Foreign Trade and Service, Durk Jandura warned that Germans may have to dig into deeply in their pockets to pay for American products in supermarkets.

Orange juice, borbon and peanut butter were the most likely products to be hits. “The margin in business is so low that it cannot be absorbed by companies,” he said.

Overall, the European Union will target US exports € 26BN (£ 22BN).

European Union spokesman Olof Gill said, “We are not going to the hypothetical in addition to saying that we are assimilating for all these results.”

The European Union Council President Antonio Costa called the US to de-asselate, although on Wednesday there was little indication, as Trump vowed to hit back to the European Union’s counters.

“We have been abused for a long time and we will not get abuse now,” he said.

Even in Austria, there was concern about growth.

“America is the second most important export market for Austrian products after Germany – and is the most important for Germany,” Christophy Pneumor said, who heads the Federation of Austrian Industries. It was “necessary that Europe works together and decisively”, he said.

An European Union official said that products such as soybean and orange juices can be easily obtained from Brazil or Argentina, so consumers will not be very difficult.

And a suggestion was that some of the targeted American exports were from American states under Republican control: Soybean or Nebrasca from Louisiana and meat from Kansas.

Relatively large number of US exports enter the European Union through the Dutch port of Rotterdam or Antwerp in Belgium.

Dutch Economic Affairs Minister Dirk Beljarts said that no “tariffs were benefited by the war”, but they hoped that it would not make his country’s economy very difficult: “It affects companies and consumers – especially consumers in America.”

An area that will be particularly rigid on both sides of the Atlantic is in the drink sector.

Spirits Europe’s Palin Bustidon stated that producers united in the European Union and the US united, with the risks facing European companies that produced American spirits and American companies, which were heavy invested in Europe.

Chris Swonger of the US Distilled Spirits Council said that since the first 25% tariff suspension of the European Union on American whiskey in three years, the US distillers “worked hard to achieve concrete places in our biggest export market”.

It was “depth disappointing” from 1 April to re -recurring tariffs He called for a return to “zero-to-zero” tariff,

For cognac producers in France, 25% of American import tax is also a major problem because most of their yield is for export, either for the US or China.

French manufacturers have already crashed into Chinese measures It has slapped heavy taxes on the conyac.

“The morale is down in the dump,” Bastian Brucifero of the General Winegrows Union told France’s information.

Thousands of jobs alone are at stake in the Chant area, they say: “Cognac is a product designed for exports.”

The head of the European Steel Association was also a strict warning from Heinrich Adam.

“President Trump’s ‘US First’ policy has threatened to be a final nail in the European Steel Industry coffin,” he warned.

In 2018, Trump’s initial tariff on European steel saw a more than a million tonnes of steel exports of the European Union, and for every three tons of steel entering the US, entered the European Union in two-thirds of it.

“These new measures taken by Trump are more widespread, so the effect of American tariff is likely to be more.”