The tariffs were slated to take effect starting on April 15, and to hit back at President Trump’s steel and aluminum levies.
Reporting from Brussels
The European Union on Wednesday approved its first retaliation measures in response to President Trump’s tariffs, a plan that was thrown into uncertainty just hours later, when Mr. Trump announced he would be ramping up tariffs on China while pausing some of his levies on other countries.
E.U. officials did not respond with an immediate comment on how they might react to Mr. Trump’s latest swerve.
Depending on how events develop, Mr. Trump’s announcement could be seen as a vindication of the European strategy: Rather than taking the aggressive tack that China has used to respond to the president’s tariffs, E.U. policymakers have moved slowly — making extensive outreach to their American counterparts, emphasizing that they want to negotiate, offering up possible wins, and announcing plans to hit back only slowly and as a last resort.
“They’re not really going for full confrontation,” said Carsten Brzeski, an economist at ING, said of the bloc’s approach before Mr. Trump’s announcement on Wednesday.
Europe’s plans for retaliation were always gradual. The response approved on Wednesday, by a group of E.U. trade policymakers, would place increased duties on a range of U.S. manufactured goods and farm products, including soybeans and corn.
The new tariffs would take effect in phases starting on April 15, and would affect about 21 billion euros ($23 billion) worth of goods. But it was unclear what would happen to those plans after Mr. Trump’s abrupt shift on Wednesday.
We are having trouble retrieving the article content.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and your Times account, or for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Want all of The Times? .
Source: www.nytimes.com