On Monday 12 March, the European Commission was still awaiting confirmation of a meeting with the US administration in order to be assured of the exemption of the EU from the customs duties enacted by US President Donald Trump on Thursday 8 March, which will be applied in about 10 days' time against imports into the USA of aluminium and steel.
"No meeting is planned this week, but we await different contacts at different levels", a Commission source told EUROPE on Monday afternoon, adding that at this stage no date had been formally put forward by Washington for the meeting announced by Trump on Monday morning between US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and representatives from the EU.
"Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross will be speaking with representatives of the European Union about eliminating the large tariffs and barriers they use against the USA. Not fair to our farmers and manufacturers", Trump tweeted.
Visiting Brussels on Saturday 10 March for a meeting with the EU and Japan on industrial overcapacity (see other article), US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer did not give the assurances expected by the EU about its exemption from customs duties of 25% on imports of steel into the USA and of 10% on imports of aluminium. The duties are motivated on the grounds of national security under Section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Action (see EUROPE 11973).
"We did not obtain immediate clarity on the procedure for being exempted", European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström deplored after the meeting on Saturday.
Shortly afterwards, Trump made the EU's exemption from the US taxes on steel and aluminium conditional on the EU's elimination of its customs and regulatory barriers against US products.
"The European Union, wonderful countries who treat the US very badly on trade, are complaining about the tariffs on steel and aluminium. If they drop their horrific barriers and tariffs on US products going in, we will likewise drop ours. Big deficit. If not, we tax cars etc. FAIR!", he said.
"We have seen how it (protectionism) is used as weapon to threaten us and intimidate us. But we are not afraid and we will defend ourselves against our intimidators", Malmström assured on Monday morning.
During its daily press conference on Monday, the Commission said it was continuing work on its package of counter-measures, including an appeal at the WTO, safeguard measures and retaliation measures that would hit US products for €2.8 billion (see EUROPE 11976).
It nevertheless repeated that "dialogue" with Washington remained "the first option" to ensure the EU's exemption from the US measures. Canada and Mexico will be exempt from these measures.
Berating the more general issue of transatlantic customs duties, the Commission also tried to defend the EU's trade openness with the USA, with figures in support.
"The EU and the US are generally open for each other's products. On average, the tariff applied by the EU is of 3%. This is actually very similar to the average tariff applied by the US, which is 2.4%. The US tariff on cars (2.5%) may well be lower than the EU one (10%) but there are in fact other higher tariffs on the US side and this even in the same sector. For example, for trucks and pick-ups, the tariff on the US side is as high as 25% (while it’s 14% on average on EU side)", a Commission spokesperson stated.
"The US has also high tariffs on other products, including on groundnuts (164%), shoes (48%) and textiles (12%). Overall, the EU's external tariff has fewer of such tariff 'peaks' than the US. So cherry-picking particular tariffs in one category (like looking just at car tariffs on both sides) while not taking into account lower levels on other products does not give an accurate picture of tariffs in general", the spokesperson added.
France wants a "unified and strong" response from EU. "We are assessing the precise impact (of the US decision) in terms of jobs and prices, business by business, production site by production site. There will be an impact on steel and aluminium production in France. France is affected and that is why we seek a unified and strong European solution", France's Economy Minister Bruno Le Marie said on Monday. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)