EU-Trump: war over car tariffs is going on

US President Donald Trump has refused an offer from the European Union to scrap tariffs on mutual imports of vehicles, saying the proposal is a one-sided deal favoring Europe.
The response came hours after EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom announced that the bloc is “willing to bring down even our car tariffs to zero, all tariffs to zero, if the US does the same.”

“It’s not good enough. Their consumer habits are to buy their cars, not to buy our cars,” Trump said in an interview with Bloomberg News.

Under the current trade agreement, Washington levies a 25 percent tariff on light trucks and pickups and 2.5 percent on smaller vehicles from Europe, while Brussels imposes a 10 percent tariff on all passenger cars imported from the US.

On Thursday, EU trade chief Cecilia Malmström told European Parliament’s trade committee that Brussels is willing to scrap tariffs on all industrial products, including cars, in its trade talks with the United States.

“We are willing to bring down even our car tariffs down to zero … if the U.S. does the same,” she said, adding that “it would be good for us economically, and for them.”

Last month, European automotive stocks soared after Trump met with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, and the two leaders agreed to work towards eliminating tariffs for non-auto industrial goods. Malmstrom’s statement on Thursday went further than Trump and Juncker’s agreement, which caused European auto stocks to jump initially before paring their gains.

Trump also said in the interview that the EU is “almost as bad as China, just smaller.” The president told aides he supports tariffs on an additional $200 billion in Chinese goods as early as next week, according to Bloomberg.