EU sees US easing impact of metals tariffs in coming weeks

European Union officials believe the US will soon streamline its broad tariffs on products containing steel and aluminum, a topic that’s been an irritant in transatlantic relations and a key sticking point in trade negotiations.

A move by President Donald Trump’s administration to reduce the amount of goods subject to the 50% tariff rate applied to so-called derivative products that contain the metals may be weeks away, according to people familiar with the bloc’s thinking.

The EU has long been seeking relief from the broad metals tariff, which officials in the bloc argue runs afoul of the trade deal struck last year that put a 15% tariff ceiling on most European products. The US regularly revises the list of derivative products, increasing the amount of goods subject to the 50% rate — that list currently surpasses 400 items.

“I got reassurances from our US colleagues that they know that this is a big problem for us and that they’re looking into this matter,” Maros Sefcovic, the EU’s trade chief, told lawmakers Tuesday. “Hopefully we’ll have better news in that regard rather soon.”

A request for comment sent to the office of the US Trade Representative wasn’t immediately returned.

The planned changes wouldn’t impact tariffs on commodity-grade forms of the metals.

The expanding derivatives list also creates an arduous task for companies to identify the percentage of the materials in goods they export and chips away at the benefits of last year’s trade agreement.

The potential progress comes at a difficult moment in transatlantic relations. Ratification of the US-EU trade deal was thrown into doubt after the US Supreme Court struck down Trump’s use of an emergency-powers law to impose his so-called reciprocal tariffs around the world.

In response to the court decision, the US introduced a new 10% global levy on top of existing most-favored nation tariffs, which will increase duties on some EU exports above the level permitted in the US-EU trade accord.

The European Parliament suspended legislative work on approving the EU-US accord on Monday, requesting clarity on Trump’s new trade policy.

Still, both sides have indicated that they want to uphold the accord even as a transition to a new trade policy could take months, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Sefcovic has been in contact with his US counterparts multiple times in recent days, said the people, and he briefed the bloc’s ambassadors on the latest developments on Monday.

(By Alberto Nardelli)