“The feeling that everything can jump at any moment has never really vanished,” a official for the week’s European Commissioner Maros Sefcovic felt in the middle of the week. The new sting announced by Donald Trump – who from June 4th will raise the duties on aluminum and steel from 25 to 50% – reports the tension on the Brussels -Washington axis to the stars, approaching the breaking point.
The negotiations thus risk jumping, it was the firm reaction of the European Commission which – in expressing “deep regret” for a decision seen as a harbinger of “further uncertainty about both banks of the Atlantic” – immediately said he is ready to show off the countermeasures so far put in stand -by “even before” of the end of the moratorium, set in mid -July. An explicit threat – strengthened by the criminal encouragement that overseas weighs on the Tycoon tariff policy – evoked on the eve of a crucial week of interviews in Paris, on the occasion of the OECD ministerial, the last joint before the June appointments among the leaders. The European hopes of distance signals from Washington – rekindled just a week ago from a phone call between Ursula von der Leyen and Trump – quickly cooled. The announcement of the whips of the White House to increase the pressure on the sectors – steel and aluminum – remained out of the perimeter of the US court the objective ‘duty will be shutdown on the industrial assets chased by Brussels. And “Mina”, in the words of the EU executive, a negotiation already at the mercy of shocks and repercussions, opening the way to the spiral of retaliation. The first pack of EU countermeasures on the symbols of the Made in the USA – launched in April in response to Trump’s duties on industrial metals and suspended after the three -month respite on the so -called mutual rates of the Liberation Day – is already ready to return in force. The second, even more full -bodied, is in the final consultation phase. If the crisis were to worsen by blending the agreement, the Commission thundered, the defensive measures will be implemented in a close tour, to “consumer protection, workers and businesses”.
In the drawer there are also the heaviest tools: possible sanctions to big tech and the anti-coercion bazooka to defend the EU values, with the red lines on autonomy on VAT, health and antitrust standards. Next, the parallel strategy of the new commercial partnerships – from India to Canada – and of the hand also tense in Beijing, with Sefcovic who in Paris will meet the Chinese counterpart Wang Wento. An assertive line, supported with conviction by France of Emmanuel Macron and by the European Parliament, where the president of the Commerce Commission, the German socialist Bernd Lange, urged an “immediate” action in response to the duties of June 4th. At Palazzo Berlaymont is strong awareness that time is not an independent variable and, on the contrary, string. Sefcovic is in constant contact with his American counterpart, Howard Lutnick, and among the negotiating options he retains the offer to buy more GNL, weapons and soy from the United States. A face to face between the two is expected between Tuesday and Wednesday in the French capital, while in parallel the work of the technical table between the general director of the DG Trade of the Commission, Sabine Weyand, and the US ambassador, Jamieson Greer continues. To strengthen the diplomatic line there will also be the German chancellor Friedrich Merz, which was expected on Thursday to the White House for his first official visit from Capo del Governo. Berlin, together with Rome, continues to push for the way of dialogue, looking for margins to cool the tensions and find the agreement before the negotiating window closes. With these premises, it is the admission of some EU officials, to close a full agreement in view of the G7 of Kananaskis – from 15 to 17 June – remains complex, although Trump’s “vulnerability” escapes the forecasts. The most plausible horizon appears to be the summit born in Aja in late June, followed by a European Council in Brussels where – it is observed – the Tycoon could choose to present itself also with the support of Italian mediation and a direct initiative of Von der Leyen.