Trump tariffs

Published on 23/02/2026 – 13:58 GMT+1•Updated
14:24

EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič is set to meet G7 trade ministers on Monday after United States President Donald Trump upped the pressure on trading partners with a 15% across-the-board tariffs on imports entering the American market.

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

Trump’s move came after a US Supreme Court ruling last week struck down several global duties he had imposed from the White House last year, overturning a central part of his trade policy.

Brussels is now demanding legal clarity. The EU is bound to Washington by a trade pact clinched in July 2025 by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Trump, setting tariffs on EU exports at 15% while committing the bloc to slash its own duties to zero.

“Full clarity on what these new developments mean for the EU-US trade relationship is the absolute minimum that is required in order for us the EU to make a clear-eyed assessment and decide on next steps,” Commission deputy spokesperson Olof Gill said on Monday.

Key Parliament vote expected

Šefčovič’s G7 talks come ahead of a closed-door meeting of EU ambassadors to assess the fallout from the latest developments in the US.

Some member states, including France, are prepared to deploy the bloc’s Anti-Coercion Instrument – the so-called “trade bazooka” that allows restrictions on public procurement, licenses and intellectual property rights if necessary to push back against external pressure.

Attention is now shifting to the European Parliament, which was set to vote Tuesday on implementing the EU-US agreement by cutting tariffs on US goods, as included in the deal. Instead, MEPs are meeting on Monday afternoon to decide on the future enforcement of the agreement.

The Parliament has led resistance to the US administration, arguing the deal signed in Scotland last summer was unbalanced.

German MEP Bernd Lange, who chairs the Parliament’s Committee on International Trade, said on Sunday that he will urge negotiators to suspend the agreement. But Zeljana Zovko, lead negotiator for the EPP – the Parliament’s largest group – struck a cooler tone, telling Euronews that MEPs “keep calm and do our [their] part.”

“No need to add any more fuel to an already existing fire,” she said.

Published on 20/02/2026 – 12:34 GMT+1•Updated
12:35

European steel shipments to the US declined 30% between June and December 2025 compared with the same period a year earlier, according to recent Eurostat data compiled by Eurofer, the Brussels-based industry group.

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

The decline underscores the impact of the US’s 50% tariffs on EU steel, even after the EU and US signed a trade agreement in July 2025 agreeing a blanket 15% US tariff on EU goods. Steel was carved out of that deal and talks to ease duties remain stuck.

“A 30% drop in steel exports to the US within just six months is a clear signal that the blunt 50% tariffs imposed by the US government on EU steel are damaging our industry,” Eurofer Director general Axel Eggert said.

“The US decision to include EU downstream steel products, such as machinery, will have another huge negative impact on us and our European customers,” he added.

Washington imposed 50% tariffs on EU steel and aluminium in June 2025 and extended the measures to more than 400 steel and aluminium products in August.

Steel talks tied to EU-US trade deal enforcement

The US has framed the tariffs as a shield against Chinese overcapacity flooding global markets, including Europe.

With Chinese exports increasingly redirected from the US to the EU, the European Commission proposed on 7 October 2025 to halve the volume of steel allowed into the bloc duty-free and to levy a 50% tariff on imports exceeding a quota of 18.3 million tons a year.

The proposal steel needs to be adopted by the EU legislator. Meanwhile Brussels itself hopes to reopen talks with the White House to secure lower duties on EU steel.

But US negotiators have linked any resumption of discussions to the implementation of last summer’s EU-US trade deal, struck by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and President Donald Trump. Under that pact, the EU agreed to cut its tariffs on US goods to zero while accepting 15% duties on its exports to the US.

With the EU legislative process still requiring approval from lawmakers and member states, Washington’s patience is wearing thin. Tensions could rise further after EU lawmakers introduced amendments that may complicate talks with capitals.

The European Parliament is expected to vote on the deal in March, paving the way for negotiations with member states.

The talks stalled on the European side after the US threatened to annex Greenland militarily from Denmark in January. Although the US has softened its language, it led to delays. The administration’s continuous lobbying for less stringent rules when it comes to digital legislation in Europe has also added obstacles to the talks.