The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced that as of April 1, retaliatory tariffs will be applied on U.S. products totaling 26 billion euros, in response to the 25% tariff imposed by the United States on imports of steel and aluminum from the European Union. Von der Leyen described the U.S. action as "unjustified" and stated that the European countermeasures are firm but proportional.
According to Von der Leyen, the European Union is imposing these tariffs in response to U.S. tariffs amounting to 28 billion dollars, which align with the economic scale of them. Although the EU is applying these countermeasures, the President of the European Commission pointed out that the bloc remains open to negotiation, hence the European Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security, Maros Sefcovic, has been tasked with resuming talks with the United States to seek solutions.
The European Commission allowed the suspension of current countermeasures against the United States to expire on April 1 in response to the economic damage caused by U.S. tariffs on EU steel and aluminum exports, valued at 8 billion euros. Additionally, as a counter to the new tariffs of over 18 billion euros affecting EU exports, the European Commission plans to implement a package of new countermeasures by mid-April.
The EU countermeasures will be introduced in two phases as part of measures responding to the trade war initiated by the United States.
