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European Union leaders have been clear that they want to negotiate with the United States on trade to avoid a full-blown conflict. But with no deal in sight, officials announced a plan that is meant to hit back hard as steel and aluminum tariffs come into effect. President Trump has imposed 25 percent tariffs on all global steel and aluminum imports, including products that contain those metals, such as cookware and window frames. Given that breadth, the European Union said the U.S. levies might affect some 26 billion euros – $28 billion – of the bloc’s exports. So the bloc announced a plan that is meant to retaliate in equal measure. The response will come in two parts. The bloc had increased tariffs on a range of goods in retaliation to U.S. measures during Mr. Trump’s first term, but they were suspended under the Biden administration. That suspension will be allowed to lapse on April 1, increasing tariffs on billions of euros worth of products that include boats, bourbon, and motorcycles. The bloc’s second step will be to place tariffs on about 18 billion worth of additional products. Representatives from countries across Europe will consult for two weeks before officials finalize the list of affected products. Items that have been proposed for inclusion are industrial and agricultural. They are meant to target products, including soybeans, beef, and chicken, that are important exports from Republican strongholds. The goal is to have the new measures in force by mid-April. The announcement was Europe’s opening move in an unfolding trade conflict – one that is widely expected to intensify over the month ahead. For the bloc, the American steel and aluminum tariffs are just the start of what Mr. Trump has threatened. He has repeatedly vowed to set wide-ranging tariffs on American trading partners globally as soon as April 2. He has suggested that levies on cars in particular could be 25 percent, a figure that would be painful for German and Italian automakers. “We’re now in this escalating spiral,” said Carsten Brzeski, the global head of macro research at the bank ING. On the one hand, the European Union does not want to escalate the trade war. European officials have called tariffs “economically counterproductive,” warning that a tit-for-tat tariff fight would harm everyone involved. “Tariffs are taxes,” Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said in a televised statement on Wednesday. “Jobs are at stake, prices up, nobody needs that.”
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