The hope is that an EU-US agreement on tariffs can be reached . But if negotiations between the two sides of the Atlantic fail, the countermeasures of the “old continent” could hit American goods worth one hundred billion euros . The European Commission, after days of study away from the spotlight, has prepared its “gun” to put on the table of talks with the Trump administration. Time is running out , the American president's statements continue to fail to reassure Brussels, and Ursula von der Leyen cannot afford not to be ready in the event of a “no deal”. A hypothesis that, in the Berlaymont Palace, no one hopes for but no one, at the same time, can exclude with certainty.

On Wednesday, the Permanent Representatives of the 27 member countries will briefly outline the plan that the Commission has in the works to respond to any reciprocal duties - vertical and horizontal - from Washington . The list of products to be hit will be the subject of an additional consultation with the capitals, to be concluded within a month. The value of US goods that the EU could hit was however revealed by the Bloomberg agency: one hundred billion euros, or approximately 113 billion dollars . The package is intended to be used only if the ongoing efforts to avoid the 20% US duties were to fail , and is separate from the countermeasures put in place by the Commission to respond to the American tariffs on steel and aluminium and frozen last 10 April to lend a hand to negotiations with the US. A negotiation that, at the moment, is continuing above all at a technical level: this time flying overseas is the number one of the Directorate General for Trade, Sabine Weyand, for talks that, at the moment, are neither political nor formal. Something could move in the coming days. The EU, in fact, is not only preparing its bazooka in case of a trade war, but is also outlining its offer to meet Donald Trump's demands. Speaking to the plenary session of the European Parliament, Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic outlined the key points of the proposal: zero-for-zero tariffs for all industrial goods, including strategic sectors such as cars and car parts; a joint commitment to address global overcapacities in strategic industrial sectors, such as steel and aluminum; greater resilience of EU and US supply chains in sectors such as semiconductors and pharmaceuticals; a return to barrier-free transatlantic trade.

"Now it is necessary for the United States to demonstrate its willingness to make progress towards a fair and balanced solution ," Sefcovic explained, ensuring that, faced with "headwinds" from the Atlantic, the EU cannot remain still. If the six investigations underway in Washington lead to " unjustified tariffs, another 170 billion euros of EU exports to the United States would be affected. Overall, approximately 549 billion euros of goods, or 97% of total exports to the US," would be damaged, the EU commissioner remarked. Monstrous figures that are leading Brussels to accelerate the search for alternative partners. Focusing on the Gulf countries and South-East Asia first of all, but also looking at home: on May 19 in London there will be an EU-UK summit that, in the European quarter, they consider very important.

(Online Union)

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