Brussels’ Plan B on U.S. duties unveiled: €95 billion countermeasures and WTO appeal

Brussels – From impulsive retaliation to more reasoned rebalancing. The European Commission unveils its plan B in response to U.S. duties already in place and those that, if Brussels and Washington fail to reach an agreement, will be triggered at the end of the 90-day suspension called by Donald Trump. No longer the dollar-for-dollar approach assumed in the first package (later frozen) of countermeasures on steel and aluminium duties, but a more careful response to “not shoot ourselves in the foot,” explains a senior EU executive official.

The European Commission seamlessly stresses that the priority is to find a “mutually beneficial and balanced” solution with the White House. There is time until July 10, before reciprocal U.S. tariffs of 25 per cent on imports from the EU come into effect. It is true, however, that the EU bloc is already subject to 25 per cent tariffs on steel, aluminium, automotive and components, and 10 per cent tariffs on all goods exported to the star-studded market. Roughly 70 per cent of EU exports overseas, worth €379 billion, are already affected.
At the Berlaymont
building, they acknowledge that “there is a certain degree of asymmetry.”

Asymmetry that, to some degree, will remain even if the negotiations fail.

The European Commission has drawn up a list, submitted today for public consultation until June 10, of U.S. imports to be targeted, covering a wide range of industrial and agricultural products worth, calculated on the volume of 2024 imports, €95 billion, about a quarter of the value of EU exports to the United States already subject to new duties. The idea, however, is that these countermeasures can be “more lasting,” and therefore should be sustainable.

On the Brussels list, EU sources point out, the American wines and spirits worth €1.3 billion reappear. And then: agri-food products worth €6.4 billion and fish products worth half a billion, aircraft worth about 10.5 billion, cars and components worth 12.3 billion, agricultural and industrial machinery worth 12 billion, products related to the health industry worth 10 billion, and electrical equipment worth 7.2 billion. And other items. On the other hand, the European Commission kept pharmaceuticals, critical materials, and goods that “we consider sensitive and important” out of the list, as well as those included in the currently suspended list of countermeasures on imports of steel, aluminium, and derivative products, which are expected to affect goods worth €21 billion.

In parallel, the European Commission will assess stakeholders’ impressions of possible restrictions on some EU exports of steel scrap and chemicals to the United States worth €4.4 billion. “We are not discussing potential measures in the services sector, but that remains an option,” says a senior official. In the drawer of tools at hand, there is always that anti-coercion bazooka that would allow Brussels to heavily tax the profits of U.S. big tech in the old continent.

Another path the EU is determined to pursue is the one leading to the World Trade Organisation, where Brussels will initiate a dispute against the United States because “it is the unequivocal opinion of the EU that such tariffs blatantly violate basic WTO rules.” Should negotiations with Washington yield positive results, “the dispute can be suspended at any time,” a source points out. Finally, the Commission assures that it will continue to “closely monitor” the potential diversion of global exports to the EU market, which could be caused by the tariffs imposed by the U.S. on third countries, and will continue its diversification effort to find new export outlets and sources of supply.

Once the public consultation is closed, the EU executive will finalise its proposal for the adoption of countermeasures and submit it to the member states under the procedure known as “comitology“, in which a qualified majority vote of the EU states is required to prevent the adoption of the implementing act. EU Council sources revealed that “in general, there is confidence in the work and the direction taken by the Commission.”