US demands ‘balanced’ EU digital rules before it lowers steel tariffs
The United States on Monday demanded that the European Union overhaul its regulation of the tech sector in exchange for a reduction of U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminium imports from the bloc.
EU ministers had planned to use their meeting with top U.S. trade officials to push for the implementation of their July trade deal, with cuts to U.S. tariffs on EU steel and their removal from EU goods.
But U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, on his first visit to Brussels since taking office, said the 27-nation EU first needs to rethink its digital sector rules to make them more balanced.
“And if they can come up with that balanced approach, which I think they can, then we will, together with them, handle the steel and aluminum issues,” Lutnick told reporters after he and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer’s 90-minute meeting with EU ministers in Brussels.
Ahead of that meeting, European Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic said he did not expect any immediate breakthroughs with his U.S. counterparts, but believed the conditions were in place to start discussing a solution for steel.
The United States has a 50% tariff on the metals and since mid-August has applied this to the metal content in 407 “derivative” products such as motorcycles and refrigerators. More derivatives may be added next month.
EU diplomats say that such actions, along with the prospect of new tariffs on trucks, critical minerals, planes and wind turbines, threaten to hollow out the July accord.
