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(BRUSSELS) – Any imposition of additional import duties on EU exports of steel and aluminium to the United States, announced by US president Trump, will be met firmly by the EU, says Commission President Juncker.
Taking note of the announcement by the United States president, Jean-Claude Juncker said: “Instead of providing a solution, this move can only aggravate matters. The EU has been a close security ally of the US for decades. We will not sit idly while our industry is hit with unfair measures that put thousands of European jobs at risk.”
He said the EU would react “firmly and commensurately to defend our interests”, adding that the EU Commission would bring forward in the next few days a proposal for WTO-compatible countermeasures against the US “to rebalance the situation”.
The root cause of problems in the steel and aluminium sectors was “global overcapacity caused by non-market based production”!, said the EU’s Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem: “This can only be addressed at the source and by working with the key countries involved. This go-it-alone action by the US will not help.”
The new US import duties are set at 25 per cent on steel and 10% on aluminium. Similar restrictions will also be imposed on exports from other countries.
This action follows investigations undertaken between April 2017 and January 2018 by the US Department of Commerce under Section 232 of the US Trade Expansion Act of 1962. These reports concluded that steel and aluminium imports threatened US national security and recommended the imposition of trade restrictions.
However, in essence, these measures are primarily intended to protect the US domestic industry from import competition. Any national security justification appears very weak: the US Secretary of Defence has stated publicly that US military requirements represent no more than 3% of US production and that the Department of Defence is able to acquire the steel and aluminium it needs for US national defence requirements.
