E.U. Pledges to Fight Back on Trump Tariffs as Trade War Looms<br />If the American tariffs are put in place, Ms. Malmstrom said, Brussels could take three steps: It could take the case to the World Trade Organization, add safeguards to protect the European Union against steel diverted from the United States,<br />and impose tariffs on a series of American-made goods.<br />By MILAN SCHREUERMARCH 7, 2018<br />BRUSSELS — European Union officials unveiled an array of tariffs on Wednesday<br />that they would place on American-made goods if the United States followed through on President Trump’s plan to impose penalties on imported steel and aluminum, raising the specter of a trade war.<br />The United States is the world’s largest importer of steel,<br />and while many of Mr. Trump’s arguments have focused on cheap steel from countries like China, the European Union as a whole is the single biggest exporter of steel to the United States.<br />Internationally, the plan for the new American tariffs — blanket penalties of 25 percent on imported steel<br />and of 10 percent on aluminum — have drawn concern from allies including Britain and Canada, as well as from rivals like China.<br />European leaders were quick to stress that they did not want to trigger a wider trade dispute, with Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, saying in a tweet<br />that trade wars were “bad and easy to lose,” a reference to an earlier tweet by Mr. Trump in which he claimed they were “good and easy to win.”<br />President Trump said: ‘trade wars are good and easy to win’.
