The EU wants to waive tariffs on industrial products with the US, Trump: "That's not good enough"

Early morning on August 31, foreign media reported that the EU's top trade official said on Thursday that the EU is willing to eliminate tariffs on all industrial products, including automobiles, in trade negotiations with the United States, highlighting the EU's willingness to expand the scope of trade negotiations with the United States.

“We are willing to bring our tariffs on cars to zero, all tariffs (on industrial products) to zero, if the United States does the same,” said EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom.

Malmstrom said the EU would negotiate a zero-tariff agreement on cars if the United States responded.

But US President Trump rejected the EU's proposal, saying the EU's proposal to exempt auto tariffs was "not good enough." "Their consumers are conditioned to buy the cars they build themselves, not ours," Trump said.

Autos were not included in a plan agreed in July between Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who said the two sides would explore a possible trade deal to achieve "zero tariffs, zero non-tariff barriers and zero subsidies" on industrial goods.

The exclusion of cars was unexpected, given that the impetus for the negotiations in July came from Trump's threat to impose punitive tariffs on the EU auto industry in response to what he sees as unfair treatment of U.S. auto exports. EU diplomats said after the talks that the U.S. side demanded that cars be excluded from any deal.

Trump has repeatedly complained about the EU's 10 percent tariff on imported passenger cars, compared with a 2.5 percent U.S. tariff. The EU says Trump's complaints ignore higher U.S. barriers on other products, such as pickup trucks.

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