French President, Emmanuel Macron has said Donald Trump’s decision to suspend tariffs he had imposed on countries for 90 days sends out a signal and leaves the door open for talks.
However, Macron stated that this “pause is a fragile one.”
“Fragile, because the 25% tariffs on steel, aluminum and automobiles and the 10% tariffs on all other products are still in place.
“They represent 52 billion euros ($58.8 billion) for the European Union! Fragile, because this 90-day pause means 90 days of uncertainty for all our businesses, on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond.”
Emmanuel Macron
Macron also reaffirmed that France and the European Union would present a united front in terms of negotiations aimed at reaching a deal and getting the US tariffs removed.
The EU suspended its own package of retaliatory tariffs after President Trump set out a 90-day pause to the bulk of his planned import duties, which would have meant a broad 20% tariff on all goods brought in from the EU.
Also, Henna Virkkunen, the European Commission Vice President responsible for tech sovereignty, welcomed the US decision on “reciprocal” tariffs. She said, “We want to have a good trade agreement with the USA and we don’t want to have a trade war.”
While the commission has said that all retaliatory options remain on the table if trade talks fail, Virkkunen declined to “speculate” about possible EU actions against US tech companies.
France has led calls to consider measures against US tech firms in response to tariffs on European goods. Virkkunen said “different options” for retaliation had been prepared in consultation with member states.
EU To Not Compromise On Tech Rules To Reach Deal With Trump
Meanwhile, Henna Virkkunen, the European Commission Vice President responsible for tech sovereignty, indicated in an interview that the EU was not going to compromise on its digital rulebook to reach an agreement on trade with the US – a key demand of Trump administration officials.
“We are very committed to our rules when it comes to the digital world. We want to make sure that our digital environment in the European Union … that it is fair and it’s safe and it’s also democratic.”
Henna Virkkunen
She pushed back at suggestions that EU digital regulations could be considered trade barriers, saying the same rules applied to all companies, whether European, American or Chinese. “We are not specially targeting certain companies, but we have this risk-based approach in all our rules,” she stressed.
In recent days, Trump’s senior Trade Adviser, Peter Navarro, has claimed the EU was using “lawfare” against the US’s largest tech firms, in an FT article featuring a litany of complaints against supposed “non-tariff weapons.”
The Meta Chief Executive, Mark Zuckerberg, has accused the EU of “institutionalising censorship”, while Trump has attacked European decisions to impose fines and pursue anti-trust investigations into the likes of Apple and Facebook.
Referring to the EU’s digital rules, Virkkunen said that US tech firms often had greater obligations, because they were among the biggest companies on the market. “When you are a bigger player, then there are more obligations, because you are posing a bigger risk,” she stated.
Also, Virkkunen, stressed her wish to ensure Europe’s digital rules were not too cumbersome for small businesses, amid rising concern about Europe’s anaemic economic growth in comparison with the US and China, which are also far more advanced in artificial intelligence technologies. “We are lagging very much behind because 80% of our technology is coming outside of the European Union, so there’s a lot of work ahead of us,” she said.
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