European Union vows response to US tariffs

The European Union vowed a "firm and proportionate" response to US President Donald Trump's blanket 25-percent tariffs on steel and aluminum imports to the United States.

In a statement just hours before she met with US Vice-President JD Vance on Tuesday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she deeply regrets the US decision to impose tariffs on European steel and aluminum exports.

"Tariffs are taxes — bad for business, worse for consumers," she said.

"Unjustified tariffs on the EU will not go unanswered — they will trigger firm and proportionate countermeasures."

"The EU stands united in defending the interests of its businesses, workers and citizens," European Council President Antonio Costa said on X, expressing solidarity with von der Leyen.

Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminum cover imports from all countries, effectively canceling earlier US deals to suspend steel and aluminum tariffs with the EU and several other economies.

In a readout following von der Leyen's meeting with Vance on the sidelines of the AI Action Summit in Paris, the European Commission said von der Leyen reaffirmed the EU's commitment to a fair trade relationship while both parties expressed their intention to prioritize economic areas of mutual interest, including energy.

EU officials have indicated that the EU could buy more energy from the US to help narrow the bilateral trade deficit, a source of complaint for Trump.

The EU had a goods trade surplus of 156 billion euros ($162 billion) with the US in 2023, but the US ran a services trade surplus of 104 billion euros with the EU the same year, according to the European Commission.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told the German parliament on Tuesday that "the EU will react, united", adding that "ultimately, trade wars always cost both sides prosperity".

European Commissioner for Trade Maros Sefcovic told the European Parliament on Tuesday that by imposing tariffs, the US will be taxing its own citizens, raising costs for its own businesses and fueling inflation.

Disruptive effects

"Tariffs are not only harmful for the trading partners directly involved, but also risk having disruptive effects for many others, as well as the global trading system as a whole," he said, adding that "it is a lose-lose scenario".

"We are currently assessing the scope of the measures announced overnight and will be responding in a firm and proportionate way through countermeasures."

When Trump first imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports back in 2018, the EU responded by slapping its own tariffs on a list of US products, from Harley-Davidson motorcycles to bourbon whiskey to cranberry juice.

Jasna Plevnik, president of the Geoeconomic Forum Croatia, said the EU hopes it might get an exemption from the steel and aluminum tariffs because of its geopolitical significance within the transatlantic security partnership.

"However, it is unlikely that the EU will get a quick and effective exemption from Washington's tariffs because President Trump likes more protectionism than alliances, does not respect the WTO, and deeply believes the EU is not competing fairly with the US, whether they are political allies or not," she told China Daily.

Plevnik said although Vance stated that the US "cares a lot about Europe", Brussels is aware that it must prepare the bloc for a big Trump trade war directed against all those countries that have a trade surplus with the US.

"To protect its interests, the EU must turn to cooperation with China to jointly respond to the ongoing challenge to world trade by the US because a united front of all 27 EU member states will not be enough," she said.

Henrik Adam, president of Brussels-based European Steel Association, or Eurofer, accused Trump's tariffs as "a radical escalation of the trade war launched under his first administration".

"It will further worsen the situation in the European steel industry, exacerbating an already dire market environment," he said in a statement on Tuesday.

According to Eurofer, EU steel exports to the US fell by over 1 million metric tons a year under the previous agreement with the US. With the new measure, the EU could lose up to 3.7 million tons in steel exports to the US, the second-biggest market for EU steel producers, representing 16 percent of total EU steel exports last year.

"Losing a significant part of these exports cannot be compensated by EU exports to other markets," Adam said.

The American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union said on Tuesday that the tariffs "will have a wide-reaching and overwhelmingly negative impact on jobs, prosperity and security on both sides of the Atlantic".