The European Commission has announced that it will delay retaliating to US steel and aluminium tariffs for 90 days.
It comes as the US has paused wider 20 percent tariffs on the EU.
But Donald Trump has said steel and aluminium tariffs of 25 percent will remain in force.
In a statement, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said “we took note of the announcement by President Trump. We want to give negotiations a chance.
While finalising the adoption of the EU countermeasures that saw strong support from our Member States, we will put them on hold for 90 days.
If negotiations are not satisfactory, our countermeasures will kick in. Preparatory work on further countermeasures continues. As I have said before, all options remain on the table.”
Asked why the EU had decided to pause retaliation when the US steel tariffs remain in place, the European Commission’s Trade Spokesperson, Olof Gill, confirmed that the “US steel and alumium tariffs are now in place, not just against us, but against the entire world, and, yes, the car tariffs are in place, but we are not going to take any further steps right now because we want to leave space for negotiation.”
“We want to talk to our Americian counterparts.
I think it is crystal clear that our strategy all along as been to continue on two tracks, on the one hand to make it very clear to our American counterparts that we believe these types of tariffs are harmful, counterproductive, do no good to anyone and we want to avoid them…
And on the other hand, to show that when it comes to these type of escalations, we’re not going to be pushed around.”