[其他] EU trade chief threatens retaliation against US car tariffs [推广有奖]

The EU’s trade chief said Brussels was “ready” to retaliate against US products if Washington slapped tariffs on cars, as Donald Trump’s threatened levies on the automotive sector cast a cloud over budding trade talks between the EU and the US.

On a visit to Washington, Cecilia Malmstrom, the EU’s trade commissioner, told reporters that Brussels was working on a “rebalancing list” of US goods that would face retaliatory measures if the Trump administration proceeded with the car tariffs.

She said it would cover “a lot of different sectors” and would be “compatible” with global trade rules. “It could be all kinds of issues, it could be cars, it could agriculture, industrial products . . . we will do that but we hope we don’t have to get to that.”

Her remarks followed a meeting with Robert Lighthizer, the US trade representative, in which the pair sought to advance trade talks initiated by a “handshake” deal reached by Mr Trump, US president, and Jean-Claude Juncker, EU Commission president, in late July, in an attempt to defuse transatlantic commercial tensions.

Mr Lighthizer and Ms Malmstrom have made some progress towards harmonising regulatory standards, but a comprehensive trade deal between the EU and the US remains a very distant prospect.

The lingering US threat to impose tariffs on foreign cars and car parts has remained a key source of friction in trade with the EU since levies on vehicles and components would hit automotive producers in Germany, the UK and Italy particularly hard. In March, the commerce department initiated a probe into car imports to determine whether they posed a national security risk to the US, paving the way for possible tariffs, which is close to complete.

This week, Mr Trump’s trade team met to review the findings and postponed a decision on whether to move forward amid scepticism from key cabinet members, but this was only a delay and the car tariffs are expected to be back on the agenda before the end of the year.

“I have said to ambassador Lighthizer and to many others that we think these tariffs would be hugely damaging not only to the European economy but also for the American economy,” Ms Malmstrom said. “We think there is much more to gain from having a positive agenda,” she added.

A report by the Tax Foundation, a Washington-based economic think-tank, released this week estimated that a 25 per cent tariff on the EU’s $56.3bn in annual exports of cars to the US would lead to more than 31,000 job losses.

As well as the EU, Japan would also be adversely affected by the US tariffs on car imports, and has also been trying to stave off that danger. Canada and Mexico are also big exports of cars and car parts but would be shielded from the tariffs under the revision of the Nafta trade deal, called USMCA, agreed with Mr Trump in September.

Since coming to office, Mr Trump has already imposed tariffs on foreign steel and aluminium products, which have also angered many allies including the EU. But doing the same on cars would represent a bigger economic threat and would mark an even greater symbolic break with the EU, and especially with Germany.

Beyond the car tariffs, Washington and Brussels are also at loggerheads over whether farm products should be part of their trade negotiations. US officials insist they must be — and no trade deal could be conceived without them — while EU officials say agriculture should not be included. Instead, any deal would be “very limited” and focused on industrial goods, Ms Malmstrom said.

The testy mood enveloping US-EU trade talks was exacerbated this week when Mr Trump criticised on Twitter what he described as the unfair treatment of US wine exports to the EU — and France in particular — compared with the terms on which French wines come into America.

But Ms Malmstrom said it was “not correct” to say there was any big difference. “We are happy to buy the American wine and I think many Americans are happy to buy European wines as well and the costs are more or less the same when it comes to tariffs,” she said.