European ministers meet to forge the strategy after Trump’s surprise 30% Prices: NPR

Brussels – European trade ministers meet on Monday in Brussels, after the surprise announcement by US President Donald Trump of 30% on the European Union.

The EU is the largest American trading partner and the largest commercial block in the world. The American decision will have repercussions for governments, businesses and consumers on both sides of the Atlantic.

“We should not impose countermeasures at this stage, but we have to prepare to be ready to use all the tools in the toolbox,” said Denmark journalists, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, before the meeting. “So we want an agreement, but there is an old saying:” If you want peace, you have to prepare for war. “”

The prices, also imposed in Mexico, should start on August 1 and could make everything from French cheese and Italian leather goods to German electronics and more expensive Spanish pharmaceutical products in the United States and destabilize Portugal’s savings in Norway.

Meanwhile, Brussels has decided to suspend the reprisals on American products planned to take effect on Monday in the hope of reaching a trade agreement with the Trump administration by the end of the month.

The “countermeasures” by the EU, which negotiates trade agreements on behalf of its 27 member countries, will be delayed until August 1.

Trump’s letter shows “that we have until August 1” to negotiate, said the president of the European Commission on Sunday, Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels.

Maroš Šefčovič, the EU’s commercial representative in his talks with the United States, said negotiations would continue.

“I am absolutely 100% sure that a negotiated solution is much better than the tension that we could have after August 1,” he told journalists in Brussels on Monday.

“I cannot imagine moving away without real effort. That said, the current uncertainty caused by unjustified prices cannot persist indefinitely and therefore we must prepare for all the results, including, if necessary, proportional countermeasures well designed to restore balance in our static relationship in transit.”

Letters to the EU and Mexico come in the middle of a threat from inverted Trump to impose prices on the countries and put an imbalance in trade.

Trump imposed prices in April in dozens of countries, before stopping them for 90 days to negotiate individual agreements. While the three -month grace period ended this week, he started sending pricing letters to the leaders, but again, he pushed back on the day of implementation for what he says would only be a few more weeks.

If he advances with the prices, it could have ramifications for almost all aspects of the world economy.

Following new prices, European leaders have largely closed the ranks, calling for unity but also a regular hand so as not to cause another acrimony.

Last week, Europe was carefully optimistic.

On Friday, officials told journalists that they did not expect a letter like the one sent on Saturday and that a trade agreement was to be signed in “the next few days”. For months, the EU has disseminated that it has strong ready reprisals if the talks fail.

Washington’s successive stamped stamped reprimands, Šefčovič said on Monday that the EU “doubles the efforts to open new markets” and underlined a new economic agreement with Indonesia as one.

The top brass of the EU will visit the Beijing Summit Fora later this month while courting other Pacific nations such as South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia, whose Prime Minister visited Brussels this weekend to sign a new economic partnership with the EU. He also has mega-deals in preparation with Mexico and a commercial block of the South American nations known as Mercosur.

While meeting the Indonesian president on Sunday, Von Der Leyen said that “when economic uncertainty meets geopolitical volatility, partners as we must get closer”.