The European Union and Canada introduced retaliatory tariffs on Wednesday after the Trump administration’s metals duties went into impact, broadening a commerce struggle with a number of of America’s high buying and selling companions.
The U.S. at midnight started imposing 25% tariffs on all metal and aluminum imports from all buying and selling companions, with no exceptions or exemptions, the White Home stated.
International commerce tensions rattled U.S. shares. The Dow Jones Industrial Common fell 330 factors, or 0.8%, whereas the S&P 500 dropped 0.25%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq ticked up 0.25%.
Officers representing the European Union stated member states would place countermeasures on some 26 billion euros, or about $28 billion, value of U.S. items. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Fee, stated in an announcement that the EU “should act to guard customers and enterprise.”
European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen addresses a media convention at an EU Summit in Brussels, Thursday, March 6, 2025.
AP Photograph/Omar Havana, File
“Tariffs are taxes. They’re unhealthy for enterprise, and even worse for customers,” von der Leyen stated. “These tariffs are disrupting provide chains. They bring about uncertainty for the economic system. Jobs are at stake. Costs will go up. In Europe and within the United States.”
Canada adopted by asserting tariffs on about 29.8 billion Canadian {dollars}, or about $20.7 billion, in U.S. items anticipated to be imported, authorities officers stated. The U.S. imports extra metal and aluminum from Canada than another nation.
“Our sole focus is to face up for Canada pursuits, Canadian jobs and Canadian employees,” Dominic LeBlanc, minister of Intergovernmental Affairs of Canada, stated in a press convention in Ottawa.
The Canadian tariffs will start at 12:01 a.m. on Thursday, LeBlanc stated. They had been designed to be proportional to the U.S. tariffs, he stated.
The European measures had been additionally designed to match the scope of these U.S. tariffs, which the European Union stated can be value about $28 billion. The countermeasures had been anticipated to start on April 1 and be absolutely in place by April 13, the fee stated.
“Within the meantime, we’ll all the time stay open to negotiation,” von der Leyen stated.
The countermeasures comprise two steps, the primary of which is to revive on April 1 a set of beforehand suspended 2018 and 2020 countermeasures in opposition to the U.S. on a variety of merchandise.
For step two, member states will then put in place by mid-April new countermeasures focusing on about 18 billion euros value of U.S. items getting into the bloc.
These new countermeasures will goal each industrial and agricultural merchandise, together with metal and aluminum, residence home equipment, wooden merchandise, poultry, beef and different meals imports, based on a truth sheet launched on Wednesday.
Maros Sefcovic, the EU’s commerce commissioner, stated European officers would proceed working with their U.S. counterparts towards a “win-win” end result, however the “unjustified tariffs on our exports won’t go unanswered.”
“We needs to be making this nice relationship stronger, not weaker,” he stated in an announcement.
ABC Information’ Zunaira Zaki contributed to this report.
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