EU offers Washington €50 billion trade deal in exchange for tariffs removal

The Financial Times on Thursday quoted EU Trade Commissioner Maros Šefčović as saying that Brussels wants to increase purchases of goods from the United States by €50 billion ($56.46 billion) to address the trade crisis.

Šefčović indicated that the bloc would not accept Washington maintaining a 10% tariff on its goods as a fair solution to the ongoing trade talks.

The United States imposed 25% tariffs on EU cars, steel, and aluminum in March, and 20% on other EU goods in April. It then halved the 20% rate until July 8, setting a 90-day period for talks to reach a more comprehensive tariff agreement, according to Reuters.

The 27-member EU responded by suspending plans to impose counter-tariffs on some US goods and proposing to remove tariffs on all industrial goods from both sides. “If what we see as a deficit problem is a €50 billion deficit, I think we can really… solve this problem very quickly through LNG purchases, or through some agricultural products like soybeans, or other areas,” Šefčović said in a Financial Times report.