{"id":240227,"date":"2025-07-05T13:47:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-05T13:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/240227\/"},"modified":"2025-07-05T13:47:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-05T13:47:11","slug":"us-threatens-eu-with-17-tariff-on-food-exports-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/240227\/","title":{"rendered":"US threatens EU with 17% tariff on food exports \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US<\/a> has threatened to hit EU<\/a> agricultural exports with 17 per cent tariffs<\/a> in a twist to its trade conflict with Brussels, three people briefed on the discussions said.<\/p>\n

Such tariffs would hit everything from Kerrygold<\/a> butter to Belgian chocolate and olive oil from the Continent, all of which are big sellers in the US.<\/p>\n

The eleventh-hour move, which EU officials characterised as an escalation of the transatlantic dispute, came ahead of a July 9th deadline<\/a> to agree a deal between the two trading giants.<\/p>\n

US president Donald Trump<\/a> imposed a 20 per cent \u201creciprocal\u201d tariff in April but reduced it to 10 per cent until July 9th to allow for talks.<\/p>\n

Until recent days, EU officials had been expecting<\/a> that talks with the US would hold duties at the baseline rate.<\/p>\n

It was unclear if the 17 per cent on foodstuffs would be in addition to the other tariffs announced by Mr Trump or instead of them.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump has demanded that Brussels give American companies wide-ranging exemptions from regulations and cut its trade surplus with the US, but EU officials have rejected Washington\u2019s latest proposals on any such exemptions and food tariffs.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Is Big Pharma lobby shielding Ireland from the worst of US tariffs?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The EU is trying to secure its own carveouts for some products. One Brussels official said aircraft parts and spirits are among goods for which the bloc is seeking exclusions.<\/p>\n

They said that the two sides were working on a five-page draft \u201cagreement in principle\u201d, but this has very little agreed-upon text in it.<\/p>\n

Ursula von der Leyen<\/a>, the European Commission president, said on Thursday that she hoped for an agreement in principle that would allow the sides to keep talking pending a final deal. <\/p>\n

However, Washington is pushing countries to agree binding deals by Mr Trump\u2019s deadline. <\/p>\n

Maro\u0161 \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d, the EU trade commissioner, was warned of the proposed 17 per cent duties on agri-food on Thursday during meetings in Washington. The 27 member state ambassadors were informed on Friday.<\/p>\n

The value of EU agri-food exports to the US, including products such as wine, totalled \u20ac48 billion last year. <\/p>\n

Mr \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d has repeatedly characterised the changing of EU regulations to suit the US as a red line. However, the EU is also on a deregulatory drive, weakening some environmental laws.<\/p>\n

EU countries are divided between accepting some higher tariffs in return for a period of certainty and those who wish to retaliate to put pressure on the US to compromise.<\/p>\n

Friedrich Merz, chancellor of Germany, the EU\u2019s biggest and most export-dependent economy, has been pressing the commission, which runs trade policy, to settle for a quick deal. He is anxious for exemptions from Mr Trump\u2019s sectoral tariffs of 25 per cent on vehicles and 50 per cent on steel.<\/p>\n

However, several ambassadors intervened in Friday\u2019s meeting to press for stronger action against Washington, said two people briefed on the meeting. <\/p>\n

Two EU diplomats said they had been told that the US had sketched out three scenarios for July 9th: Countries with an \u201cagreement in principle\u201d would keep the 10 per cent tariffs, with possible further tariff relief at a later stage; for countries that failed to reach such an agreement, the tariffs would return to the level announced in April until a deal was struck; higher tariffs would be applied to countries that the US believes are not negotiating in good faith.<\/p>\n

As the EU prepares its possible retaliation for US duties on its products, member states have already approved counter-tariffs on \u20ac21 billion of annual US exports from July 14th. The commission is assembling a package of \u20ac95 billion more, including on aircraft and food.<\/p>\n

A commission representative said: \u201cThe EU position has been clear from the outset: we favour a negotiated solution with the US, and this remains our priority … At the same time, we are preparing for the possibility that no satisfactory agreement is reached.\u201d<\/p>\n

The White House has yet to respond to a request for comment. \u2013 Copyright The Financial Times Limited<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US has threatened to hit EU agricultural exports with 17 per cent tariffs in a twist to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[32,2000,299,5187,2557,1699,1945,93433,1216,1220,2612],"class_list":{"0":"post-240227","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-european","12":"tag-european-commission","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-friedrich-merz","15":"tag-kerrygold","16":"tag-maros-sefcovic","17":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","18":"tag-us-tariffs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114800941154589671","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}