EU commissioner suggests broad cuts to tariffs with US

BERLIN (Reuters) – The European Union’s budget commissioner suggested yesterday the bloc would be ready to discuss mutual tariff cuts with the United States across a range of products, provided Washington lifts recent punitive tariffs first.

Speaking ahead of an EU delegation’s visit to Washington for talks yesterday on a long-term trade deal, Guenther Oettinger said the EU wanted the United States to first drop its new tariffs on aluminum and steel imports.

The EU is readying tariffs on $20 billion of US goods, the commissioner said to newspapers.

“Firstly, our common line is that we expect the existing punitive tariffs to be lifted,” Mr Oettinger, a German, said of the EU’s position. “Then we are ready to discuss a reduction and restructuring of all tariffs in all sectors.”

“In this way, we want to avoid a further escalation of the trade conflict, and to avoid a trade war,” he told broadcaster Deutschlandfunk. “One could try to untangle the existing tariffs and then … reduce tariffs for various goods and services.”

“That would be a negotiation that would be possible in half a year, and which we could start with the US in the autumn.”

Mr Oettinger suggested the EU and the United States could try to negotiate a lighter version of a stalled comprehensive US-European trade deal known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

“One could try for a TTIP light,” he said.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker travelled to Washington yesterday for talks focused on trade tensions after the US imposition of tariffs on EU steel and aluminum and US President Donald Trump’s threats to extend those measures to European cars.

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