EU builds anti-Trump trade bazooka
EU builds anti-Trump trade bazooka
Brussels is looking at ways to strike at Washington in the post-WTO world.
By Jakob Hanke
10/10/19, 3:15 PM CET
Updated 10/14/19, 11:33 AM CET
Europe is devising a new trade weapon to shoot back at U.S. President Donald Trump in a deepening transatlantic trade war.
But the development of this revolutionary howitzer, which will allow the EU to impose higher tariffs on Washington, is causing palpable unease in Brussels among those officials who fear that the EU should not be stooping to Trump's dog-eat-dog level.
Under European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, the EU repeatedly encouraged Trump to engage with global trade rules at the World Trade Organization, but his successor Ursula von der Leyen is indicating that the world's biggest trade bloc may well have to play the U.S. president at his own game.
Preparing to begin her mandate next month, von der Leyen wrote to her trade commissioner, Phil Hogan, instructing him to upgrade the EU's "enforcement regulation" to improve Europe's trade defense arsenal.
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https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-builds-anti-trump-trade-bazooka/