Brussels: Major trading partners quickly raise tariffs on President Donald Trump on aluminum and steel imports, imposing stiff new taxes on U.S. products, from textiles and water heaters to beef and bourbon. Canada’s largest supplier of steel and aluminum in the U.S. said it will impose a 25% mutual tariff on steel products on Wednesday and increase taxes on many items: tools, computers and servers, display monitors, sports equipment and cast iron products.
Throughout the Atlantic Ocean, the EU will raise tariffs on American beef, poultry, bourbon and motorcycles, peanut butter and jeans. The new tariffs will cost companies billions of dollars and further escalate uncertainty in two major global trading partnerships. Companies either pay losses at higher prices, earn less profits, or are more likely to pass costs to consumers.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said prices will rise in Europe and the United States. “We deeply regret this measure. Tariffs are taxes. They are bad for businesses and even worse for consumers.” The EU’s responsibility is to put pressure points in the United States while minimizing additional damage to Europe. EU officials have made it clear that tariffs – taxes on imports are targeted at Republican-owned states such as beef and poultry from Kansas and Nebraska, as well as wood products from Alabama and Georgia. Tariffs will also hit blue states, such as Illinois, the largest soybean producer in the United States, which is also a blue state.
Spirit producers have become collateral damage in disputes between steel and aluminum. The EU’s move is “very disappointing and will seriously undermine the successful efforts of EU countries’ spiritual exports,” said Chris Swanger, head of the Distillation Spirit Committee. The EU is the main destination for U.S. whiskey, with exports up 60% over the past three years following a series of tariffs suspended in the previous three years. Is it possible to reach an agreement that increases tariffs on the desktop? Von der Leyen said in a statement that the EU “will always remain open to negotiations.”
Canada’s incoming Prime Minister Mark Carney said Wednesday that if he showed “respect for Canada’s sovereignty”, he was ready to meet with Trump and willing to take “a common approach, which is a more comprehensive approach to trade.” Carney, who will be sworn in on Friday, said workers in both countries will be better when “the world’s greatest economic and security partnership is restarted, restarted. This is possible.” ”
“We firmly believe that it is not in our common interest to put tariffs on our economies in a world full of geopolitical and economic uncertainty,” she said. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce in the EU said that U.S. tariffs and EU countermeasures “only harm the work, prosperity and security on both sides of the Atlantic.” “Both sides must gradually reduce and eagerly find the results of the negotiations,” the Chamber of Commerce said Wednesday.
What really happens?
Trump expressed anger on EU tariffs on steel and aluminum during his first term in office in Europe and other allies. The EU also countered the retaliation at the time, raising tariffs on products such as motorcycles, bourbons, peanut butter and jeans made in the United States. This time, the EU’s action will involve two steps. The committee first re-extracted taxes that came into effect in 2018 and 2020 for the first time on April 1, but was suspended under the Biden administration. Then on April 13, the United States transferred 18 billion euros ($19.6 billion) of additional responsibilities to the United States.
EU Trade Commissioner Maroshe šefcovic went to Washington last month to work to remove tariffs, meeting with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and other top trade officials. He said on Wednesday it was obvious that “the EU is not a problem” during the trip. “I advocate the unnecessary burden of avoiding measures and countermeasures, but you need a partner. You need to clap your hands,” šefcovic told reporters in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France.
Canada’s strength is that as of 12:01 a.m. Thursday, the price of reciprocal tariffs for steel products worth $12.6 billion ($8.7 billion) and $3 billion ($2 billion) and an additional $14.2 billion ($14.2 billion) was $299.99 million, totaling $2.91.8888 billion. ) The list of other products affected by the anti-election includes tools, computers and servers, display monitors, water heaters, sports equipment and cast iron products.
The tariffs are a 25% counter-tax on Canada’s $30 billion (20.8 billion Canadian currencies), with U.S. import taxes starting March 4 in response to other Trump tariffs he has delayed for a month. According to the European Steel Association, European steel companies support the EU could lose 3.7 million tons of steel exports. The United States is the second largest export market for EU steel producers, accounting for 16% of the total EU steel exports.
The EU estimates that the annual trade volume between the two sides is about US$1.5 trillion, accounting for about 30% of global trade. Despite the group’s overexport of goods, it said that partly was offset by surpluses in U.S. services trade.
