“The resolve has been there for a few days,” said one of the diplomats. “We have felt it in our bilateral talks … there is very broad support that the EU must prepare for all scenarios, and that also includes that all instruments are on the table.”
What governments request of the Commission will be decided largely by what the U.S. president says in his address at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday. While several European leaders have been trying to arrange meetings with Trump on the Davos sidelines to talk him down from imposing the tariffs, they are also preparing for the possibility that Trump follows through on his threats.
Trump on Saturday announced he would slap a 10 percent tariff on NATO allies that have opposed his move to take Greenland, including France, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, the U.K., Norway, Sweden and Finland. The U.S. leader has since escalated further, threatening a 200 percent tariff on French wine and Champagne.
Aside from the anti-coercion tool, or “trade bazooka,” leaders have also discussed using an earlier retaliation package that would impose tariffs on €93 billion worth of U.S. exports. Two of the EU diplomats indicated that it is possible to impose the tariffs first, while the Commission goes through the more cumbersome process of launching the powerful trade weapon.
“There is a convergence with the Germans, there’s an awakening on their part, that we have to stop being naive,” said a senior French official, referring to using the bazooka against Washington. French President Emmanuel Macron has championed the move, but other capitals have been more cautious given the risk it could trigger further measures from Trump, as well as the potential costs to their economies.
The thinking within the German government appears to be that in order to avoid a full-blown trade war with the U.S., the bloc needs to get a strong deterrent in place.