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US President Donald Trump said the United States wanted "at least a minimum of trade" when meeting with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker today in the White House.
Speaking alongside Mr. Juncker in the Oval Office prior to an expanded bilateral meeting, Mr. Trump said he was expecting "something very positive". But he pointed out that the United States was losing "hundreds of billions" of dollars through trade agreements with others.
million. Juncker is in Washington to defuse trade tensions between the two blocs, fearing that the US may impose tariffs on European car exports to the United States. While Mr Trump and Mr Juncker have already met several times at G7 meetings, it is the first time the President of the European Commission has visited President Trump at the White House.
"I am honored to have the President – he is a man I have known very well," said Mr. Trump sitting next to the head of the European Commission. "He represents his people and countries well," he said, adding that he was "very intelligent and hard."
"I hope we can fix something," he said.
million. Juncker thanked the US president for "taking the initiative" to invite him to the White House.
"We are close partners, allies, not enemies, we have to work together," he said. "We represent half of world trade …. so we must talk to each other and not to each other and what we will do today." We should focus on reducing tariffs, and no on increasing tariffs.
Growing fears of a growing trade war between the US and the EU as a result of Donald Trump's threats to raise tariffs customs on car imports
A few hours before the meeting, Cecilia Malmstrom, the EU was preparing tariffs of 20 billion dollars (17 billion euros) on US products if the US- United applied auto tariffs.
The EU taxes US cars by 10 percent, while the United States imposes a 2.5 percent tax on cars imported from the European Union.
But the EU points out that its other taxes on trucks, US clothing and other products are much lower, while America taxes EU trucks at 25 percent.
The WTO rules also mean that if the EU reduces tariffs on US cars, it should also do so for other WTO countries.
Before the meeting, Mr. Trump defended his commercial policy on Twitter.
"Tariffs are the best, 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! "
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