The European Union Commissioner (EU) for trade Maroš Šefčovič asked the US to postpone increasing tariffs to European exports. This will provide time for interviews to reduce or even remove duties in the key sectors of trade between the EU and the US. TASR reports this based on AFP and RTE reports.
The main question for the American side is reciprocity in both customs and poor obstacles, Šefčovič said after meeting with American trade minister Howard Lutnicka, White House’s economic advisor Kevin Hassett and nominee at sales representative Jamieson Greer in Washington.
European duty on car imports is 10 %
The EU has a low average customs rate for imports from the US. However, it is willing to negotiate a reduction in duties, especially in the automotive sector, where the EU has a 10 %CLO duty on car imports, while the US has introduced duty on light trucks of 25 %.
Šefčovič has presented a list of duties and technical obstacles that discriminate against the US to the US and who would like to change. He downplayed talk about retaliatory measures and said he wanted to focus on positive engagement and trade support.
Both parties also talked about the regulation and taxation of digital companies. Šefčovič noted that some large American digital companies have more EU customers than in the US, with most cases of EU investigation against them on the initiative of small American companies claiming that large players treat them unfairly.
“Censorship of the Internet”
According to him, it is necessary to explain to the American side of the idea and philosophy of how the EU regulates online societies, especially the concept that if something is illegal offline, it should be illegal also online.
Several representatives of Trump’s administration and wider MAGA movement attack the EU for “Internet censorship” and claim that European laws are an attack on freedom of expression. Billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg sharply criticized EU laws that require their company X and Facebook They spent money on the moderators of the content. Dangerous or illegal content must be removed.
When asked if he found out what the US main goal was, he answered that it was a reciprocity in the area of tariffs. “We also dealt with the issue of non -arriving obstacles. Here the US has a list of complaints, but I also handed over our list of complaints, and we couldn’t solve some problems for years. “
Need to further explain
President Trump again criticized the value added tax (VAT) in the EU this week and described it as another duty on US export. However, it seems that even the efforts of Šefčovič to explain to Americans VAT did not change their opinion. According to him, it will be necessary to further explain that VAT is a consumption tax, not importing, and comparing it with the US sales tax. “It is clearly a non -discriminatory character and society does not apply. It returns to them, it is a tax that the final consumer pays, “he explained.
He added that both sides have a lot of information that they can familiarize with political leaders and hopes that they will be able to quickly move on many questions “to build positive dynamics and avoid painful measures and countermeasures”. But he pointed out that the EU will respond to the US steps.
