The European Union will wait until mid-April to impose retaliatory tariffs against some U.S. imports—including a 50% tax on American whiskey—to allow time for negotiations with the U.S. and a review of the products that will be subject to the new tax, the EU’s governing body, The European Commission, announced Thursday.
The European Union plans to impose new tariffs on imports of certain U.S. products such as bourbon ... [+]
The levies—announced in retaliation for the Trump administration’s steel and aluminum tariffs—were initially supposed to be phased in beginning April 1, with a second wave of products subject to the tax on April 13.
The tariffs are expected to hit $28 billion of U.S. imports to the EU in a reinstatement of the tariffs the EU charged during Trump’s first term that predominantly targeted goods from Republican-held states.
Some European leaders cautioned the commission against engaging the U.S. in a trade war in response to the retaliatory tariff plans, including French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Irish Prime Minister Michael Martin. “I am not certain that responding to tariffs with more tariffs is necessarily a good deal,” Meloni said Tuesday, urging “common-sense solutions between the United States and Europe, guided more by logic than by instinct.”
Trump implemented a 25% tax on steel and aluminum from U.S. trading partners on March 12, prompting the EU to announce the retaliatory measures. Trump, in turn, threatened a 200% tax on all alcohol imports from the E.U. unless it removed its planned 50% tax on American whiskey.
Reciprocal tariffs on all U.S. trading patterns are set to take effect April 2, including products covered under the U.S.-Canada-Mexico trade agreement that were exempt from the 25% tax Trump implemented on imports from the neighboring countries earlier this month.
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