(Bloomberg) — The European Union has tools that it can turn to if Donald Trump makes excessive threats to strategic industries such as steel, French Trade Minister Nicolas Forissier said.<\/p>\n
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The US president said on Friday he planned to increase levies on imports of EU cars and trucks to 25% this week because he considers the bloc isn\u2019t complying with a trade deal struck in July.<\/p>\n
EU officials have said all options will be on the table if Trump follows through with the threat as the two sides work to implement the agreement.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will use our tools, especially if there are too many threats on our economy or on our industrial, strategic interests \u2014 for example, I am thinking of steel \u2014 so we will no longer be naive,\u201d Forissier said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The French minister will meet with US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer later Tuesday for talks before hosting counterparts from the Group of Seven on Wednesday in Paris.<\/p>\n
European lawmakers will meet Wednesday with the other EU institutions \u2014 the European Commission and the European Council \u2014 to finalize legislation to implement the trade agreement with the US. Bernd Lange, who chairs the European Parliament\u2019s trade committee, said they intend to implement the accord in June.<\/p>\n
Under the deal \u2013 which was signed in July \u2014 the EU agreed to erase levies on US industrial goods in exchange for a 15% tariff ceiling on most EU products. The US has implemented certain provisions of the deal.<\/p>\n
But EU officials say the US hasn\u2019t complied with other parts, pointing to the fact that Washington widened a 50% tariff on European steel and aluminum in August to include hundreds of new products.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are now in the final stages of implementing the remaining tariff commitments,\u201d Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told reporters Tuesday in Armenia. \u201cAt the same time, the US has the commitment, for example, where alignment with the agreed ceiling is still outstanding.\u201d<\/p>\n
The spike in tensions over possible car tariffs is overshadowing France\u2019s efforts to move forward on other elements of the G-7 agenda, including discussing how to respond to Chinese over-capacities.<\/p>\n
The group is also seeking more coordination on diversifying supply of critical minerals away from China, as well as collaborating on the challenges of digital trade.<\/p>\n
Even before Trump\u2019s latest threats, the EU was unhappy with the US tariffs on steel and aluminum products despite Washington\u2019s recent revisions as nearly half of the EU exports using these metals would end up having higher duties.<\/p>\n
Although both sides agreed to continue talks to address this long-standing irritant since the agreement was reached, the commission told EU envoys last week that it\u2019s ready to respond if necessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything is on the table,\u201d French President Emmanuel Macron said in Armenia. \u201cIf any given country were threatened with tariffs, the EU has equipped itself with instruments that would then have to be activated, because that is their purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n
Macron added that he hoped that reason would prevail again \u201cas soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
The July agreement between the US and the EU is in the process of being ratified, Forissier said. Trump\u2019s latest threats create more uncertainty for businesses and economies, he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s moving at the normal pace,\u201d he said. \u201cWe will implement what was in the deal. The announcement by President Trump doesn\u2019t help.\u201d<\/p>\n
–With assistance from Caroline Connan, William Horobin, Andrea Palasciano, Katharina Rosskopf and Ania Nussbaum.<\/p>\n
(Updates with comment by the French president from the 14th paragraph.)<\/p>\n
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\u00a92026 Bloomberg L.P.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Bloomberg) — The European Union has tools that it can turn to if Donald Trump makes excessive threats…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3530,8919,195,8922,8921,788,5,8520,8923,8918,8920],"class_list":{"0":"post-11764","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-bloomberg","9":"tag-bloomberg-television","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-eu-cars-and-trucks","12":"tag-eu-institutions","13":"tag-european-commission","14":"tag-france","15":"tag-nicolas-forissier","16":"tag-strategic-industries","17":"tag-the-european-union","18":"tag-us-president"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}