E.U. Pledges to Fight Back on Trump Tariffs as Trade War Looms
If the American tariffs are put in place, Ms. Malmstrom said, Brussels could take three steps: It could take the case to the World Trade Organization, add safeguards to protect the European Union against steel diverted from the United States,
and impose tariffs on a series of American-made goods.
By MILAN SCHREUERMARCH 7, 2018
BRUSSELS — European Union officials unveiled an array of tariffs on Wednesday
that they would place on American-made goods if the United States followed through on President Trump’s plan to impose penalties on imported steel and aluminum, raising the specter of a trade war.
The United States is the world’s largest importer of steel,
and while many of Mr. Trump’s arguments have focused on cheap steel from countries like China, the European Union as a whole is the single biggest exporter of steel to the United States.
Internationally, the plan for the new American tariffs — blanket penalties of 25 percent on imported steel
and of 10 percent on aluminum — have drawn concern from allies including Britain and Canada, as well as from rivals like China.
European leaders were quick to stress that they did not want to trigger a wider trade dispute, with Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, saying in a tweet
that trade wars were “bad and easy to lose,” a reference to an earlier tweet by Mr. Trump in which he claimed they were “good and easy to win.”
President Trump said: ‘trade wars are good and easy to win’.
