The chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade (INTA), Bernd Lange (S&D, Germany), said on Thursday 30 September that he was delighted with the progress made by the EU-US Trade and Technology Council (TTC), but was cautious about what would happen next.
“We now have platforms to exchange information on specific issues, such as the challenges of international trade and cooperation on labour rights or trade-related climate policies”, he said.
However, he regrets the lack of results in the negotiations leading to a solution for the steel and aluminium tariffs introduced by Donald Trump, also known as the “Section 232 tariffs”.
Other MEPs also raised this issue during a debate in INTA on 27 September.
In June, EU leaders and US President Joe Biden pledged to resolve the dispute by 1 December. Otherwise, EU tariffs, which were put in place in response to the Section 232 tariffs, will increase, some by as much as 50%.
While the subject was not discussed at the TTC launch, EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis and US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo met earlier in Washington on the subject. “We are making progress, I would say, but there is still a long way to go and the timetable is tight”, Dombrovskis said at a conference at the University of Pittsburgh on 30 September. He explained that it was imperative that the discussions be concluded by the beginning of November in order to allow time for the administrative procedures that would follow, and that everything be ready by 1 December.
According to former EU Trade Commissioner and former World Trade Organization (WTO) Director General Pascal Lamy, who participated in the INTA exchange on 27 September, these US-imposed tariffs should simply be withdrawn, without negotiations. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)