It’s published
Days after the EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and US President Donald Trump called on the EU Commission to reconcile EU trade relations with the United States, particularly in the services sector.
“To be free we need to be afraid. We are not afraid enough,” Macron reported at a meeting of the French Council of Ministers, saying that the French media “seeks for unrelenting efforts to readjust trade, particularly in the services sector.”
“This is not the end of the story and it won’t stop here,” the French president added. This is because the EU Commission is still negotiating an exemption from the 15% U.S. tariffs on EU imports agreed on July 27th.
Since the start of the tariff war with the US, France has consistently supported a hard-line approach and wielded the threat of anti-forced instruments. It is an EU tool that allows foreign companies to deny access to public procurement, licensing or intellectual property rights.
This tool will allow the EU to target US services. In this service, BLOCs run a trade deficit with the US, unlike products.
countermeasure
The EU also has a package worth 95 billion euros worth of countermeasures targeting US products, which were suspended until August 4th. The committee is currently awaiting a US executive order confirming that as of August 1, a comprehensive 15% tariff will be applied to imports of EU goods.
“Of course, the measures are there,” said an EU official: “They are approved by their member states, so they can be returned at any time on Tuesday (August 4th) if necessary.
The French president acknowledged the difficulty of negotiations with the United States and welcomed the exemption set aside for the aerospace sector, which is considered a strategy in Paris. France also hopes the committee will negotiate a wine and spirit exemption, representing the US as France’s major export markets.
“We continue to negotiate with Americans so that if possible we can exempt spirit, perhaps wine and other sectors. That’s an ongoing work,” French Economic Minister Eric Lombard told French Radio on Wednesday.
At the pinnacle of aircraft, Von Der Leyen announced on Sunday that zero-to-zero tariffs will apply to certain chemicals, generic drugs, semiconductor manufacturing equipment and some agricultural products.