The European Commissioner for Trade, Maroš Šefčovič, is travelling to the United States on Thursday 3 July for talks with his American counterparts, Howard Lutnick and Jamieson Greer. A team of negotiators from the European Commission is going ahead of him in Washington to move the discussions forward.
The aim of these discussions is to reach a “framework agreement” with US President Donald Trump by Wednesday 9 July, in order to keep the tariffs on European products, which Mr Trump had raised to 50%, frozen for a few more weeks. European countermeasures would then also be on hold while the details of the agreement between the US administration and the European Commission are worked out.
According to Bloomberg, the Commission is prepared to agree to maintain the so-called “base” tariff of 10% on EU exports to the United States. In exchange, Washington is expected to lower its tariffs on steel, aluminium and automobiles, and not to raise those on pharmaceutical products.
This approach echoes the comments made by the French and German leaders on Thursday 26 June, when they stressed the importance of reducing customs duties in these strategic sectors (see EUROPE 13668/1).
However, several Member States are hoping that Maroš Šefčovič will be able to negotiate a more advantageous solution, even if this means a base tariff of 8 or 9% instead of 10%. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)