Bruxelle/Edinburgh (Reuters) – The president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen must meet on Sunday in Scotland with the American president Donald Trump in order to advance towards a commercial agreement which would allow the European Union to avoid customs duties up to 30% on its products imported in the United States.

According to diplomatic sources, Washington and Brussels are moving towards an agreement which would provide for basic customs duties of 15% on European goods imported into American territory, half less than the taxation rate that Donald Trump threatened to apply on August 1.

An agreement would make it possible to end months of uncertainty for European companies, while Donald Trump, returned to power last January at the White House, undertook a redesign of the trade policy of the United States, announcing in April large so -called “reciprocal” customs taxes – mostly suspended in the process – against dozens of commercial partners.

As a prudence, EU member countries approved a ‘plan B’ on Thursday: a set of retaliatory commercial measures, up to 93 billion euros, in the event that no agreement is reached with Washington, diplomatic sources said.

On the road to Scotland for a few days to play golf and meets there, Donald Trump told journalists on Friday evening that Homers Von Der Leyen was a highly respected leader and that he was looking forward to meeting her.

The American president, who owns a golf area in Turnberry, in the southwest of Scotland, also said that there was a 50% probability that Washington and the EU come to a trade agreement on trade, adding that Brussels wanted to “ardently” conclude an agreement.

For the time being, more than 70% of European products exported to the United States are subject to customs duties, with different rates: 50% on steel and aluminum, 25% on the automobile and spare parts, as well as 10% – the “floor” threshold fixed by Donald Trump – on most other goods.

Donald Trump warned that he would raise this threshold at 30% from August 1 in the absence of agreement with Brussels, which would have the effect, according to European representatives, of considerably reducing transatlantic trade.

The American president also intends to impose important customs duties on copper and the pharmaceutical sector.

Washington “prudently optimistic”

An agreement with Washington on American customs duties of 15% would be considered by many Europeans as a poor outcome to negotiations compared to the initial objective of Brussels – no customs tax, on the one hand as on the other, on all industrial products.

The fact remains that such an agreement would avoid customs duties of 30% and would end the uncertainty surrounding economic conditions which have already harmed the profits of European companies.

It would also constitute, for Donald Trump, the most important commercial pact hitherto completed, before the framework agreement of $ 550 billion announced in the middle of the week with Japan.

If the Trump administration has already come up with agreements with Great Britain, Indonesia and Vietnam, it did not make its promise of “90 agreements in 90 days”, as announced in April during the suspension of reciprocal taxes to allow commercial negotiations.

Negotiations with the EU are close to succeeding but are not complete.

Thus the American representative in trade, Jamieson Greer, and the American secretary of trade, Howard Lunick, left Washington on Saturday to go to Scotland to meet the European Commerce Commissioner, Maros Sefcovic, also traveling in Scotland upstream of the meeting between Donald Trump and Ursula von der Leyen.

“We are cautiously optimistic about the fact that an agreement will be reached,” said a representative of the Trump administration, on condition of anonymity. “But it’s not over before it’s over.”

A vagueness remains on Washington’s disposition to grant Brussels exemptions concerning sectoral customs duties, such as automobile and pharmaceutical products. European representatives have expressed their optimism about the prospect of seeing European cars and pharmaceutical products are also taxed at 15%.

Regarding steel and aluminum, all imports of which in the United States are targeted by customs duties of 50%, Donald Trump said that there was “not much” a room for maneuver. “If I do it for one, I have to do it for everyone,” he told journalists.

(Andrew Gray in Brussels, Andrea Shalal in Edinburgh, with the contribution Richard Lough in Paris, Julia Payne in Brussels; Jean Terzian)

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