EU On Track To Ratify Trade Pact With United States While Raising Its Own Steel Tariffs

The European Commission, the European Union’s (EU) executive arm, has struck a provisional agreement regarding legislation to remove import duties on U.S. goods.

According to CNBC, the agreement includes a safeguard mechanism that would allow the Commission to suspend tariff reductions in the event that U.S. imports harm European industries. It also includes a provision that will allow for the suspension of tariff preferences if the United States continues to apply a tariff rate higher than 15 percent on EU steel and aluminum derivatives by Dec. 31, 2026. (The Commission must report to the European Parliament and to the Council by Dec. 1, 2026 regarding the tariff treatment of steel and aluminum derivatives.)

As CNBC also noted, the provisional agreement comes almost a year after the EU and the Trump administration struck a trade deal that called for the EU to scrap tariffs on U.S. industrial goods and for the U.S. government to cap tariffs on most European goods at 15 percent.

Earlier this month, President Trump said he would give the EU until July 4 to ratify that trade agreement. The EU is now expected to meet that deadline. A European Parliament trade committee is likely to vote on the agreement on June 2, followed by a full Parliament vote between June 15 and June 18, and then final approval by EU governments. The law would take effect the day after it is published.

In related news, the European Parliament also has given final approval to a plan that would raise tariffs on steel imports EU countries. Lawmakers voted 606-16 in favor of the policy, which will result in a 50 percent increase in tariffs and a 47 percent reduction in the volume of steel allowed into the EU before tariffs apply. (Specifically, tariff-free import quotas will be cut to 18.3 million tons annually, the total volume of steel imported into the EU in 2013.) Read Connecting the Dots’ previous coverage of this plan.