European Commission champions fair trade deal as US-EU tensions escalate

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has expressed Europe’s readiness for a fair trade agreement as tensions with the US reach unprecedented heights.

With ongoing trade negotiations, the European Commission has proposed a deal to the US, offering to remove tariffs on all industrial goods. Von der Leyen also highlighted her intention to retaliate against President Donald Trump’s policies should the talks fail, Caliber.Az reports per foreign media.

The escalating trade conflict follows Trump’s recent announcement of a 20 percent across-the-board tariff on imports from the EU, which is scheduled to take effect on April 9. The tariffs also include a separate 25 percent rate on steel, aluminum, and cars, with over 380 billion euros worth of EU-made products set to be affected. However, some goods like pharmaceuticals, copper, lumber, semiconductors, and energy are exempt from the new duties.

"We stand ready to negotiate with the US. Indeed, we have offered zero-for-zero tariffs for industrial goods as we have successfully done with many other trading partners," von der Leyen stated.

"Because Europe is always ready for a good deal. So we keep it on the table. But we are also prepared to respond through countermeasures and defend our interests." 

The “zero-for-zero” tariff deal was previously proposed by the EU for the automotive sector, but Washington’s response was insufficient, according to von der Leyen. In recent days, the European Commission has broadened the scope of the offer to cover all industrial goods as negotiations intensify. 

"We prefer to have a negotiated solution," von der Leyen added, cautioning that the European Commission would utilize "all instruments" available, including a new anti-coercion mechanism introduced in 2023, should retaliation become necessary. The European Commission leader characterized Trump’s sweeping tariffs as a "major turning point for the United States," stressing that they would impose "immense costs" on American consumers and businesses while delivering a "massive" blow to the global economy.

While Washington justifies the tariffs as "reciprocal," Brussels has dismissed this reasoning as "neither credible nor justified." Beyond the immediate consequences for EU-US trade, Brussels is concerned about the broader implications for international commerce, particularly in Asia. Asian countries have faced higher tariff rates than the EU, including Malaysia at 24 per cent, India at 26 per cent, Indonesia at 32 per cent, Thailand at 36 per cent, Vietnam at 46 per cent, Laos at 48 per cent, and Cambodia at 49 per cent. China, in particular, is facing a 34 per cent "reciprocal" tariff in addition to a previous 20 per cent duty, bringing the total to a staggering 54 per cent, with Beijing already retaliating. 

Brussels is particularly concerned that such high tariffs will force Asian countries, whose economies depend heavily on exports, to redirect their products to Europe rather than the US. This is of particular concern with China, which is already under scrutiny for flooding Western markets with heavily subsidized, low-cost goods. In response to these challenges, von der Leyen announced the formation of a new "task force" to monitor shifts in global trade.

"We will also protect ourselves against indirect effects through trade diversion. For this purpose, we will set up an 'Import Surveillance Task Force'," she said. "We look at what are the historical imports that we have and had and [whether] there is any specific surge all of a sudden of a certain product or in a certain sector that we have to act on."

By Naila Huseynova