The European Commission announced Wednesday it launched a series of countermeasures against the US‘ additional tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from the EU.
The commission recalled the suspended “rebalancing measures” against US President Donald Trump‘s 2018 tariff moves during his first term, and noted that it will reimpose these suspended measures from 2018 and 2020.
The commission will also create a new package of additional measures against the US, to include many products “ranging from boats to bourbon to motorbikes.”
It said: “Since the new US tariffs are significantly broader in scope and affect a significantly higher value of European trade, the Commission launched on 12 March the process to impose additional countermeasures on the US.
“These will target approximately €18 billion (around $19.6 billion) worth of goods, which will then apply together with the reimposed measures from 2018. The objective is to ensure that the total value of the EU measures corresponds to the increased value of trade impacted by the new US tariffs.”
In 2018, Trump introduced tariffs on European steel and aluminum exports, known as section 232, targeting €6.4 billion on EU goods, and in January 2020, additional tariffs for certain derivative steel and aluminum products came into force.
This year, Washington decided to reinstate sanctions from 2018, to increase the tariffs from 10% to 25% and to extend tariffs to other products containing steel and aluminum.
The commission said new tariffs will affect a total of €26 billion of the bloc’s exports, around 5% of the overall exports of the EU to the US, and that this will result in US importers having to pay up to €6 billion in additional import tariffs.
It added that stakeholders will debate new countermeasures till March 26, then the commission will conclude the adoption process to impose countermeasures as of mid-April.