The European Union (EU) insists that any agreement in the US trade dispute must be permanent. If stable solutions fail, the Union is ready to introduce retaliatory duties, He announced on Friday Bernd Lange, President of the Committee of the European Parliament (EP) for trade. TASR informs this based on the DPA report.
“If we reach an agreement, it cannot happen that new duties will be introduced in only a few days,” Lange told the German public radio Deutschlandfunk. Lange is currently in Washington at negotiations with US government officials. Both parties have time to reach the agreement by July 9. If they fail, US President Donald Trump plans to introduce high duties on EU imports.
This week’s international trade court declared almost all Trump’s duties illegal, When he decided that The President acted beyond his powers. However, the Federal Court of Appeal subsequently annulled this decision and preliminarily unlocked the duties. The situation is evolving, but customs policy is a matter of the US Congress and should not be subject to the whims of the President, Lange said. He stressed that The EU continues to seek to agree on an agreement and offered for example Increasing imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and semiconductors from the US.
As regards the question of further concessions, he could discuss Removing some duties for industrial goods and mutual recognition of technical standards. However, some European legislation, for example in the field of food security, cannot be the subject of negotiations, Lange stressed.
