The EU returns to Trump’s rates and warns against the commercial war

In Brussels, it was just after 06:00 on Wednesday. But it was midnight in Washington DC when 25% tariffs of President Donald Trump about steel and aluminum entered into force in the main US business partners.

The European Union took less than 10 minutes to respond.

“Tariffs are taxes. They are bad for business, and worse for consumers,” said the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.

EU initial countermeasures will enter into force in American products on April 1, From jeans and motorcycles to peanut butter and bourbonas with the first Trump administration tariffs in 2018 and 2020.

But there will be more to come in mid -April. A complete strip of textiles, appliances, food and agricultural products could be included, depending on a two -week consultation with interested parties.

A list of articles of almost 100 pages is distributed that presents meat, dairy, fruits, wine and liquors, toilet seats, wood, coats, swimsuits, nightgowns, shoes, candlesticks and grass cutters.

For consumers, the highest prices arise on the shelves of European supermarkets, especially for American products. But for companies and some industries, especially steel, there is a real danger.

The head of the Federation of Trade and Foreign Trade Service of Germany, Dirk Jandura, warned that the Germans could have to deepen their pockets to pay US products in supermarkets.

Orange juice, bourbon and peanut butter were the most likely products to be beaten. “The margins in trade are so low that this cannot be absorbed by companies,” he said.

In total, the EU will go to 26 billion euros (£ 22 billion) from US exports.

“We are not going to enter hypothetics that are not saying that we have been regularly preparing for all these results,” said EU Olof Gill spokesman.

António Costa, president of the EU council, asked the United States to be dismissed, although there were few signs of that on Wednesday, since Trump promised to return the return to EU’s countermeasures.

“We have been abused for a long time and we will not be abused,” he said.

Also in Austria, there was concern for climbing.

“The United States is the second most important export market for Austrian products after Germany, and the most important for Germany,” said Christoph Neumayer, head of the Federation of Austrian Industries. It was “essential for Europe to act together and decisively,” he added.

An EU official said products such as soybeans and orange juice could easily obtain Brazil or Argentina, so consumers would not be hit too much.

And there was a suggestion that some of the United States exports were also from the US states under republican control: Louisiana soy or Nebraska and Kansas meat.

A relatively large number of US exports enter the EU through the Dutch port of Rotterdam or Antwerp in Belgium.

Dutch Economic Minister Dirk Beljaarts said that no one benefited from benefiting from a “fees war”, but was hope that the economy of his own country would not affect too much: “It has an impact on companies and consumers, particularly consumers in the United States.”

An area that will be hit especially on both sides of the Atlantic is in the beverage sector.

Pauline Basidon de Spirits Europe said that EU and the United States producers were united, with risks facing European companies that produced US spirits and US companies that were strongly invested in Europe.

Chris Swonger, of the US Diring Council of the USA.

The reimposition of the tariffs of April 1 was “deeply disappointing” and Asked for a return to “zero for zero” rates.

For Cognac producers in France, the perspective of an import tax of 25% in the United States is also an important problem, since most of their products is for export, either for the United States or China.

French producers have already been beaten by Chinese measures They have slapped heavy taxes in Cognac.

“Morality is in the landfills,” said Brusaferro Busaferro of the General Union of Winegrowers to France Info.

Thousands of jobs are at stake only in the Charente region, he says: “Cognac is a product made for export.”

There was also a serious warning of the head of the European Steel Association, Henrik Adam.

“The policy of ‘America First’ by President Trump threatens to be a final clavo in the coffin of the European steel industry,” he warned.

Trump’s initial tariffs on European steel in 2018 saw EU steel exports fall to the United States in more than one million tons, and for every three tons of steel that did not enter the US. UU., Two thirds entered the EU.

“These new measures imposed by Trump are more extensive, therefore, it is likely that the impact of US tariffs is much greater.”