Brussels (Reuters)-The countermeasures that the European Union plans to impose in response to the customs duties set up by the United States on steel and aluminum will remain suspended until August 1, said the president of the European Commission on Sunday, Ursula von der Leyen.
President Donald Trump announced on Saturday that he would impose customs duties of 30% on the products imported from the European Union from August 1 if no trade agreement is concluded by then.
These customs barriers would be added to those that the United States has already imposed or threatened to impose on certain sectors of activity.
While announcing that the retaliatory measures of the twenty-seven would not come into force before August 1, Ursula von der Leyen declared during a press conference that the EU “would continue to prepare other countermeasures in order to be perfectly ready”.
A first package of countermeasures with American customs duties on steel and aluminum, which would receive 21 billion euros (24.6 billion dollars) of American goods, was suspended in April for a period of 90 days in order to leave time for negotiations.
The suspension was to expire on Monday, the deadline initially fixed by Donald Trump to conclude trade agreements.
A second train of countermeasures has been in preparation since May and would target 72 billion euros in imported American goods, but these measures have not yet been made public and the final list must be approved by the Member States.
Ursula von der Leyen added that the use of the European instrument for the fight against coercion, mentioned in particular by Emmanuel Macron, was not yet on the agenda.
“The instrument (anti-coercion) is created for extraordinary situations, we are not there yet,” she said.
This instrument allows the European Union to take retaliatory measures against third countries which exert economic pressure on the member states of the EU so that they modify their policies.
Possible retaliation measures could include a restriction of EU market access for goods and services, as well as other economic measures linked to areas such as foreign direct investments, financial markets and export controls.
(Written by Julia Payne and Charlotte van Campenhout; Tangi Salaün)
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