The Daily Populous Tuesday April 8th, 2025 night edition
Authored by politico.eu and submitted by sweatycat

Removing tariffs on industrial products such as cars and chemicals was not seen as controversial at the time — agricultural products and safety standards were a much hotter potato.

Von der Leyen’s renewed offer comes after Trump last week slapped 20 percent tariffs on the EU and a slew of other trade partners, hiking U.S. trade barriers to their highest in more than a century.

Trump’s trade war has caused investors to panic, with financial markets across the world losing trillions of dollars or euros in value. European stocks suffered their biggest one-day falls since the start of the Covid pandemic on Monday.

EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič said separately that the zero-for-zero deal could cover cars and all other industrial goods, such as chemicals, pharmaceuticals, rubber and plastic machinery. | Jean-Christophe Verhaegen/AFP via Getty Images

Amid the market turmoil, von der Leyen sought to project calm.

“We stand ready to negotiate with the U.S.,” she said.

The EU charges average tariffs of just 1.6 percent on U.S. non-agricultural products, on a trade-weighted basis. But it does charge a higher tariff of 10 percent on imported American cars — although the U.S. is the only G7 country that still pays it because TTIP wasn’t concluded.

Albion-Chap on April 7th, 2025 at 14:51 UTC »

"you can have the same deal we've been offering for years but if you want to claim that as a win be my guest"

Far_Broccoli_8468 on April 7th, 2025 at 14:48 UTC »

> The U.S. and EU came close to scrapping industrial tariffs a decade ago in their discussions of the TTIP — the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership — that was ultimately scuppered by Trump in his first term.

This is comedy gold

cdnirene on April 7th, 2025 at 14:44 UTC »

You mean like the free trade agreement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico? The agreement where the tariff rate on steel, aluminum and autos is set at zero but the U.S. recently slapped on tariffs of 25%?