With the clock ticking, leaders are scrambling to talk the U.S. leader down.
BRUSSELS — European ministers will hold emergency talks on Donald Trump’s escalating trade war on Wednesday, where there’ll be one question on everybody’s mind: How hard should they push back against the United States leader?
“We have to respond. We can’t just do nothing,” said one EU diplomat, who like others in this story was granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter. “Negotiating is always best,” another Brussels official added. A third advocated taking both approaches at the same time.
The risk of shouting back is clearly that it will further antagonize the maverick MAGA leader, while the risk of holding off is that he’ll be encouraged to go further.
As the hurricane of Trump’s first month back in the White House rips through global economic and political norms, there is still a window for talks — though that time appears to be rapidly running out.
In one month, on March 12, tariffs of 25 percent are due to take effect on all steel and aluminum imported into the U.S. There are currently no exemptions for the EU or the United Kingdom.
In Trump’s hands is not only America’s economic muscle — but also U.S. military might. European governments are acutely aware that a decision to take on the White House could anger the unpredictable president and tilt the balance of his thinking on other issues, including, potentially, future U.S. support for Ukraine.
Trump has already threatened military action against Denmark in order to seize Greenland, the mineral rich Danish territory in the Arctic. The big fear stalking European capitals is that he will impose a peace settlement on Ukraine regardless of any meaningful input from either Kyiv or Brussels.
Both European and British officials have long known Trump might want to impose tariffs — he advocated protectionist measures during his election campaign last year — and have prepared retaliatory measures accordingly. But that’s where the similarity ends.
In London, Keir Starmer’s government has been treading as lightly as possible with the new president, seeking to appeal to his desire to do deals that are in his own interest with a combination of flattering and private solicitations, while refraining from criticism in public.
Even on tariffs, the signals so far are that Starmer will do all he can to avoid retaliating with tit-for-tat measures on imports from the U.S., in the hope that Trump will ultimately make good on his promise to work out a deal with Britain.
Until now, Brussels’ mantra has been to wait and see, with officials insisting there was nothing to be gained from reacting with outrage every time the president made a noise. That line gave way on Tuesday when European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen issued a fiercely worded rebuke to Trump’s proclamations on steel and aluminum.
“Tariffs are taxes — bad for business, worse for consumers,” von der Leyen said. The “unjustified” tariffs Trump has outlined on steel and aluminum “will not go unanswered,” she added.
The Commission president’s statement was welcomed on Tuesday by some of the more hawkish diplomats in Brussels, who want the EU to stand up to the U.S. more firmly.
Later in the day, von der Leyen met U.S. Vice President JD Vance in Paris on the fringes of the AI summit, though whatever they may have discussed about tariffs in private didn’t make it into either side’s public readout of the discussion.
Von der Leyen’s officials have a suite of measures available to them, including rapidly reintroducing tariffs on American exports of goods such as bourbon whiskey, Harley-Davidson motorcycles and cranberry juice.
Brussels imposed these measures after Trump first announced steel and aluminum tariffs in 2018. They were lifted when a truce in the trade war was struck later during Joe Biden’s term.
The EU’s trade ministers will hold a hastily arranged call on Wednesday to discuss the tensions, as von der Leyen’s officials prepare the bloc’s detailed response.
