WASHINGTON, May 8 (Reuters) – The United States will return to charging higher tariffs on European Union products if Brussels does not implement trade deal commitments before the July 4 deadline, US trade representative Jamieson Greer said this Friday.
Greer, speaking on Fox Business Network’s ‘Mornings with Maria’ program, said she spoke with trade officials from different European and EU countries during a visit to Europe this week and believed ‘their minds are focused’ on making the necessary changes.
‘They told me that they are committed to compliance. We hope that’s the case,but we’re watching closely. And if that is not the case, the US will return to its other tariff structure for the EU,’ he said.
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US President Donald Trump said on Thursday he would give the EU until July 4 to uphold its side of a trade deal reached in Scotland last July, before raising tariffs on EU goods, including cars, to ‘much higher levels’. Trump had previously threatened to increase tariffs on EU cars and trucks to 25%, instead of the previously agreed 15%, starting this week.
Trump’s comments eased tensions with the EU over the trade issue, but the two sides remain at odds over the war in the Middle East and the US president’s irritation that NATO allies have refused to become directly involved in the conflict.
Several developments, including Trump’s demand to acquire Greenland and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned the tariffs that prompted the trade talks in the first place, have slowed the European Parliament’s implementation of the deal.
Greer said the EU had committed last year to reducing all its industrial tariffs to zero for the US, providing duty-free access to certain agricultural products and reviewing a range of non-tariff barriers and burdensome regulations.
“We haven’t seen any of those things come to fruition,” he said. ‘Seven or eight months later, the EU has still not implemented any part of its trade deal obligations,’ he said, adding that Washington has fulfilled its side of the agreement by adjusting its tariffs.
