On Thursday, 5 February, the European Commission published a regulation in the Official Journal of the EU formally recording the suspension of trade countermeasures targeting certain US products and export restrictions on certain EU products (see EUROPE 13792/1).
These “rebalancing” measures had been adopted on 24 July 2025 in response to the additional tariffs that the US administration introduced on several EU imports, such as steel products, aluminium products, certain vehicles, beer, and agricultural products.
The 27 July trade agreement between the two blocs (see EUROPE 13689/1) had then led to the initial six-month suspension of these EU-initiated trade countermeasures. Having started on 6 August 2025, this suspension runs until 6 February 2026.
The threats of customs surcharges that would target eight European countries and the aggressive comments that US President Donald Trump made about Greenland in early January prompted the European Commission to briefly question whether it needed to extend the regulation governing the suspension of these countermeasures.
In the end, Mr Trump’s about-turn on 21 January was enough to convince the institution and Member States, in accordance with committee procedure, to extend the suspension of these countermeasures another six months.
How long will these extensions be necessary? “It’s hard to say”, a European official admitted. “Not knowing what Donald Trump’s next threat will be, it may be useful to keep these countermeasures around a while longer”, he commented.
To see the regulation: https://aeur.eu/f/klc (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)