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Donald Trump and Jean Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, were scheduled to meet Wednesday at the White House against a backdrop of new threats from both sides against their respective key industries
. Trump attacked the EU suggesting that it was Brussels that hindered free trade.
Trump repeatedly threatened to impose other tariffs on imports of European cars to the United States. on a perceived imbalance in trade between the two economic blocs.
The US President tweeted: "The tariffs are the highest, either a country that has treated the United States unfairly on trade negotiates a fair deal, or is hit by tariffs." It's as simple as that – and everyone is talking about Remember, we are the "piggy bank" that is stolen, everything will be great! "
He later added:" The European Union is coming to Washington tomorrow to negotiate a trade agreement.I have an idea for them.The US and the EU are abandoning all tariffs, barriers and subsidies! This would eventually be called Free Market and Fair Trade! Hopefully They are doing it, we are ready – but they will not! "
Cecilia Malmström, EU Trade Commissioner, who travels to Washington with Juncker, said that the EU is aligning a second round of American products to hit with the tariffs, the White House meeting should fail.
The EU is considering tariffs of 20% on 10 billion euros of US products or a lower tariff on a longer list of 20 billion euros of US products. Brussels has already applied levies for 2.8 billion euros of US goods, including Harley Davidson motorcycles and bourbon.
Malmström told the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter: "We hope that this will not happen and that we can find a solution, otherwise the European Commission is preparing a long list of many American products."
EU sources have suggested, however, that while Trump and Juncker agree on a personal level, hopes for positive developments at Wednesday's White House meeting are not high.
At a meeting of G7 leaders in Canada last month, Trump accused Juncker of being a "brutal killer", presumably with respect to the EU's trade policy
Trump s & rsquo; The US has a 2.5% levy on imports of motor vehicles, the EU has responded that Brussels is more generous than Washington in terms of tariffs. Other areas.
Trump would be nonetheless ins ready to apply a 20% duty on imports of cars and spare parts, unless the EU rethinks its trade policies. to avoid such a unilateral decision by making an offer, but only if the US lifts punitive tariffs on European steel and aluminum applied earlier this year.
In the unlikely event that Trump agrees, Juncker will suggest that the car and car manufacturers of the parties, including Japan and South Korea, negotiate a multilateral agreement to reduce to zero tariffs on these goods. products.
A second proposal would be a TTIP-lite agreement, reducing the transatlantic trade partnership and the global trade agreement between the United States and the EU, prosecuted by Barack Obama and abandoned by Trump , to a limited agreement focused solely on industrial tariffs.
There are signs that Trump's trade policies are Tuesday, the US administration was forced to pledge a $ 12 billion aid plan to subsidize farmers who were hit by the retaliatory tariffs imposed by China and the EU
. Republican Senator Ron Johnson expressed the opinions of free traders in Trump's party, saying, "It is becoming more and more like a Soviet-style economy here, the commissioners deciding who will receive waivers, the commissioners of the 39, which determine how they will spread the profits.I am very exasperated.It is serious. "
Juncker, who was more demotionless in his language about Trump than Donald Tusk, the chairman of the board European Parliament, will deliver a speech titled Transatlantic Relations: At the Crossroads after its meeting at the White House. Tusk accused Trump of forging a new American approach to foreign relations in which there are no friends, only enemies.
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