EU trade chief meets with Trump officials to avoid ‘harmful’ levies
WASHINGTON — The European Union’s trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic met with US President Donald Trump’s A trade officials on Tuesday to try to avoid steep U.S. tariffs on EU goods next week, but results of the talks were unclear.
Sefcovic said he held “substantive talks” with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and top White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett.
Two previous discussions with the Trump officials had yet to alter Trump’s plans to raise US import duties to match the rates charged by major trading partners and counteract their non-tariff trade barriers.
“The hard work goes on. The EU’s priority is a fair, balanced deal instead of unjustified tariffs,” Sefcovic said in a post on X. “We share the goal of industrial strength on both sides.”
A USTR spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on the discussions.
The meetings come as some countries are preparing tariff concessions ahead of Trump’s April 2 announcement of the reciprocal tariff plan, a day he has dubbed “Liberation Day” for the US economy from unfair trade practices.
Reuters reported on Tuesday that India is open to cutting tariffs on more than half of US imports, valued at $23 billion, in the first phase. India has among the highest trade-weighted average tariff rates at 12.1 percent, compared to 2.5 percent for the US, according to the World Trade Organization.
A US delegation led by Assistant US Trade Representative Brendan Lynch is in New Delhi this week for trade talks with Indian officials from Tuesday through Saturday, the US embassy in New Delhi said.
Might give breaks
Trump said on Monday he may give “a lot of countries” breaks on tariffs, but provided no details. Trump also said that separate tariffs on autos, pharmaceuticals and aluminum were coming in “the very near future.”
EU officials have struggled to talk Trump back from a trade war as he embarks on a multi-front tariff offensive expected to draw strong retaliatory measures. Sefcovic said last week that little progress has been made in talks with Washington after Trump imposed 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum imports earlier this month.
“They will discuss much of the same issues they’ve been discussing for the past few weeks, which is EU-US trade relations, and from our perspective, why we should be making every effort on both sides to avoid harmful tariffs and build rather than tear down the EU-US trade and economic relationship, which is the strongest in the world,” European Commission spokesman Olof Gill told reporters on Monday.
Sefcovic has said that the EU was willing to discuss reducing automotive tariffs on both sides of the Atlantic, including the EU’s 10-percent car tariff and the US 25-percent truck tariff.
No rush for Canada
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters in Halifax that Canada was prepared to add retaliatory trade measures against the US, depending on Trump’s April 2 trade actions. Trump has also threatened to end a month-long tariff reprieve for goods compliant with the US-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement.
But Carney said that Canada was not rushing to the negotiating table with Trump, with whom he has not spoken since taking office, adding that he wants “substantive discussions” between sovereign nations — a reference to Trump’s frequent demands that Canada should be annexed by the US.
“We’re not rushing to the table to take something,” Carney said. “Serious discussions, sovereign nation to sovereign nation, comprehensive ‘Canada strong’ against America as equals, and that’s when we will get the best deal for Canada.”
