EU Pushes ‘Zero-for-Zero’ Tariffs in Response to First Salvo in Trump’s Trade War

The European Union, under pressure from a 20 percent tariff President Trump imposed on the bloc last week, moved on Monday to quell the firestorm, with the EU president advocating for a “zero-for-zero” tariff agreement.“We have offered zero-for-zero tariffs for industrial goods, as we have successfully done with many other trading partners, because Europe is always ready for a good deal, so we keep it on the table,” the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said at a press conference Monday. In the absence of negotiations, the EU president warned Mr. Trump, the bloc is “prepared to respond through countermeasures and defend our interests.”Ms. Von der Leyen’s remarks were made alongside Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, signaling a united European front as global markets reel from the Trump administration’s latest trade blitz. EU trade ministers met for the first time at a bloc-wide level on Monday to figure out how to handle Mr. Trump’s sweeping tariffs.Maros Sefcovic, who is the EU trade commissioner, said on Monday that the tariffs Mr. Trump has imposed will hit $416 billion worth of EU exports. The countermeasures being considered by the EU will, in turn, hit less than $26 billion worth of U.S. imports into the bloc, the commissioner said.Global stocks took a nosedive after Mr. Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcement. The April 2 announcement introduced a 10 percent baseline global tariff, with even higher rates slated to land on April 9. Asian countries have been hit with higher rates than the EU bloc — 24 percent for Malaysia, 26 percent for India, 32 percent for Indonesia, 34 percent for Communist China, 36 percent for Thailand, and 46 percent for Vietnam. The stock market in Vietnam, a significant manufacturing hub for American companies like Nike, plummeted by 10 percent on Thursday after Mr. Trump unveiled the levy rate on imports from the region.White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said Monday that Vietnam offered an apparent olive branch over the weekend. Mr. Trump claimed via Truth Social that the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, To Lam, offered to eliminate tariffs on American imports altogether — a move that Mr. Navarro didn’t find impressive.“When they come to us and say ‘we’ll go to zero tariffs,’ that means nothing to us because it’s the non-tariff cheating that matters,” Mr. Navarro said on CNBC. He accused Vietnam of acting as a backdoor for Chinese goods, citing practices like intellectual property theft and the much-debated value added tax.“We’ve tried for decades to get VAT-tax relief, and they’ve told us no every single time,” he said.

EU Pushes ‘Zero-for-Zero’ Tariffs in Response to First Salvo in Trump’s Trade War

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