“We don’t want to have to respond, but at the risk of sounding like my three-year-old son: They started it.” That’s how Olof Gill, a spokesperson for the EU Trade Commissioner, recently summed up the 27-nation bloc’s attitude toward Donald Trump’s move to impose tariffs on European imports.
On Wednesday (April 9), before Trump paused the tariffs for 90 days and shifted most down to the 10% minimum tariff, EU diplomats agreed on what their response will look like, announcing their own tariffs totaling more than €20 billion ($22 billion) on US exports.
Calling the US tariffs “unjustified and damaging, causing economic harm to both sides,” the EU Commission said in a statement that it has a “clear preference to find negotiated outcomes … which would be balanced and mutually beneficial.”
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As Europe is still weighing up how much muscle to wield in its broader retaliation, the bloc’s countertariffs will apply in three rounds, the Commission said.
Measures covering €3.9 billion in trade will go into force next week, with a further €13.5 billion from mid-May and a final round of €3.5 billion following in December.
From soybeans to steel EU diplomats confirmed to DW that the first batch of countertariffs of up to 25% will target US steel and aluminium, and a series of food products including poultry, nuts and soybeans.
With an apparent focus on hitting the heartlands of Trump’s Republican party, the tariffs list also includes a host of other items from motorcycles to jeans, with the aim of making the goods more expensive and less attractive for European buyers.
“The lion’s share of the list consists of products that are easy for consumers and businesses to replace,” Sweden’s Trade Minister Benjamin Dousa told reporters in Brussels.
EU plans for higher levies on US whiskey were scrapped due to French and Italian concerns over countertariffs on their wineImage: Imago/M. Segerer The first round of tariffs will go into force next week and comes in response to US steel and aluminium tariffs announced last month, predating Trump’s bigger order on so-called reciprocal tariffs.
Duties on soybeans and almonds — which deal a bigger blow to US producers — will kick in late in the year. While diplomats said the delay was more legal than political, it gives Brussels breathing space as seeks to negotiate a deal with Washington to avoid a full-blown trade war.
Deal or no deal? EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic has been on and off planes and phone calls to Washington for weeks trying in vain to secure a deal to avert tariffs. After Brussels went public with its offer to scrap all duties on cars and industrial goods earlier this week, Trump was quick to turn it down.
The EU Commission reaffirmed on Wednesday that the countermeasures could be “suspended at any time” as Trump’s were soon after.
But Cinzia Alcidi, an analyst with the Centre for European Policy Studies, thinks the “crude” way US tariffs were calculated suggests the Trump administration has “no real interest in any meaningful give-and-take.”
Alcidi suspects only more US domestic pressure will put the US president in more of a deal-making mindset. “Tariffs, which are fundamentally a tax on domestic consumers, will lead to higher prices. Businesses, especially those reliant on imported components, will also struggle,” she wrote on Tuesday.
“If inflation climbs and public dissatisfaction grows, Trump’s approval ratings may dip, and unease within Congress may grow louder.”
US tech, services next in line? But much of the pain will also be felt in Europe, says Niclas Poitiers, as businesses and voters are growing “nervous.”
“I think there’s a balance to be struck between the necessity to react strongly and the need to show that one is problem-oriented and one doesn’t want to escalate,” the research fellow at Brussels-based think tank Bruegel told DW.
As Europe mulls longer-term retaliation options, US services exports, including those of Big Tech platforms or consulting firms, could move in the EU’s focus.
Sometimes referred to as Brussels “nuclear option” in the trade war, the EU’s so-called Anti-Coercion Instrument (ACI) “allows [the EU] to do many more things than the normal trade war would allow you to do,” said Poitiers.
ACI — created in 2023 in response to China’s block on Lithuanian imports over its support for Taiwan — it would allow the EU to impose restrictions on US banks, curb revenue access for streaming platforms like Netflix, or even revoking US patents.
But an EU diplomat told DW there’s “no appetite to pull that trigger for now,” adding that any talk of targeting tech remains “in the realm of speculation.”
China tariffs stoke fears in Europe A more pressing fear for the EU is a possible influx of cheap goods from China and other Asian countries as they are looking to new markets outside the US.
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EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen discussed the problem on the phone with Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Tuesday.
According to a summary published by Brussels, they talked about a “mechanism for tracking possible trade diversion and ensuring any developments are duly addressed.”
Edited by: Uwe Hessler
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