It’s the first time since President Donald Trump unleashed his global tariff war last month that a member of his administration has spoken positively in public about the prospects of advantageous American trade with the EU.
Von der Leyen stressed that “what unites us is that, at the end, we want … to have a good deal for both sides.”
So far, the Trump administration has slapped a 10 percent tariff on all imports and 25 percent duties on products like steel, aluminum, cars and car parts, all of which apply to Europe as well as other parts of the world.
Another 10 percent points of U.S. tariff on EU imports is paused until early July, but it has taken Washington until last week — almost half-way through that suspension — to present Brussels with an overview of what it hopes to achieve, which POLITICO first reported on last Wednesday.
Von der Leyen acknowledged that by adding that “it is important — now [that] we have exchanged papers — that our experts are deep diving, discussing the details.”
Trump himself has baselessly claimed the EU was created to “screw” the U.S. and said that the 27-country bloc is “nastier than China.” Officials in his administration also routinely ignore the trade surplus in services that the U.S. enjoys with Europe, which all but balances out the larger amount of goods flowing westward.
