US President Donald Trump has toughened the terms of trade talks with the EU, demanding that the agreement include a minimum duty of 15-20 percent on all European goods and refusing to reduce the 25 percent tariffs on cars, sources told the Financial Times. If no agreement is reached, the U.S. plans to impose a 30 percent duty on all imports from the EU starting August 1. At the same time, Washington is preparing new sectoral levies on copper, medicines, semiconductors, timber and critical minerals, Bloomberg sources said. 

Details

Donald Trump has toughened his negotiating stance with the European Union, demanding that any trade agreement include a minimum duty of 15-20% on all EU goods, the Financial Times reports citing sources. A US official confirmed to the publication that the White House is now considering a prime rate above 10% even if a deal is reached. The FT's interlocutors add that the US president has also refused to lower the 25 percent levy on cars from the EU, despite proposals from Brussels. The aim is to test how serious concessions the EU is willing to make after weeks of negotiations, the newspaper believes.

Previously, European officials had hoped for a trade agreement with the U.S. similar to the deal with the U.K., i.e., keeping the base duty at 10 percent with some sectoral exceptions, CNBC noted. However, one has to admit that negotiations are going hard, the channel said. According to two EU diplomats, Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič gave a pessimistic assessment of his latest meetings in Washington on Friday. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also said Washington was skeptical of the idea of reducing duties only in individual sectors: "Whether we can still agree on individual sectors remains an open question. The European side supports this approach, while the U.S. side is critical of it.

This escalation puts the EU in a difficult position: on August 1, the deadline after which the White House threatened to impose a 30 percent duty expires. Brussels has already announced its readiness to retaliate, but there is no unanimity within the Union on whether to take tough steps, the FT notes. According to the newspaper's interlocutors, the European Commission may eventually agree to a base tariff above 10 percent to avoid the worst-case scenario;

What else has come to light about the US duties

Starting August 1, the White House is preparing to impose a new package of duties on countries and industries simultaneously, and as sources told Bloomberg, in addition to Trump's promised 50 percent levies on copper, we're also talking about tariffs on wood, semiconductors, critical minerals and pharmaceuticals. According to the agency, the White House plans to impose them in that order. When all the sectoral duties come into effect, they will affect from 30% to 70% of imports from each country, explained the Bloomberg interlocutor.

Fees on pharmaceutical products may increase by up to 200%, the president said earlier. He explained that the rates would be low at first so that businesses would have about a year to adapt, but then they would be raised. Duties on semiconductors, according to Trump, will be introduced in a similar manner. At the same time, the option of imposing tariffs not only on chips themselves, but also on smartphones and laptops, including products of Apple, Samsung and other companies is being discussed, emphasizes Bloomberg. 

Some senators are calling for levies of up to 100% on furniture and cabinets. For critical minerals, the decision is complicated by the absence of major producers in the U.S., which may cause supply disruptions, the agency notes. Restrictions on the supply of drones, trucks and polysilicon used for solar panels are also being considered.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor

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