EU ups pressure on exemption from Trump’s steel tariffs

The EU has thrown down the gauntlet to the US over steel and aluminium tariffs, warning they threaten economic growth and are “distorting” global trade.

Cecilia Malmstrom, the European Union’s trade commissioner, said this morning the bloc would not offer any concessions in order to be exempt from President Trump’s act of “pure protectionism” as the two sides near a deadline in talks.

“We are a seeing a recovery and a potential growth in trade and global growth but it is threatened by these tariffs,” she told reporters in Strasbourg, France. “We can see already tendencies of distortion of trade that affects the EU as well.”

The EU, which has secured a temporary exemption lasting until 1 May, has threatened the US with retaliatory tariffs if the White House does not back down. But Malmstrom rejected suggestions she might be preparing some kind of trade offer to sweeten the deal.

“We have not offered the US anything,” she said this morning. “We are not going to offer them anything to get exceptions from tariffs that we consider are not in compliance with the WTO.

“We expect to be permanently and unconditionally exempted from these measures.”

The commissioner also warned that any escalation of growing tensions between Beijing and Washington over both these tariffs and China-specific measures was “something that could be very worrisome for the global economy.”