EU Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan meets his counterpart Robert Lighthizer in Washington in mid-January. The aim is to restart trade relations.
Dublin The new EU Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan wants to make a new attempt to resolve the customs conflict with the USA. He spoke with US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer shortly before Christmas and agreed to meet in Washington in mid-January, Hogan told the "Irish Times" newspaper on Monday.
He wants to try to restart trade relations between the EU and the United States on issues such as US tariffs on steel and aluminum and the threat of US tariffs in response to a digital tax in Europe. The aim is to agree on a line for a common trade agenda. It would be pointless to deal with detailed issues beforehand, said the former agriculture commissioner.
US President Donald Trump is bothered by his country's high trade deficit and has sparked tariff conflicts with the EU and China as a result. He has also repeatedly threatened to impose special tariffs on car imports from the European Union, which would hit German manufacturers in particular.
Most recently, he has increasingly targeted France in the EU. The reason for this is the new digital tax there, which particularly affects large US internet companies such as Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon. Trump is therefore threatening special tariffs of up to 100 percent on champagne and other French goods such as handbags and cheese worth around 2.4 billion dollars.
Source: Handelsblatt
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