European Union officials will vet and vote on a list of retaliatory tariffs this week, while contemplating what comes next.
President Trump’s announcement last week that he will impose a 20 percent tariff on goods coming from the European Union sent shock waves across the 27-nation bloc, the latest move in an unfolding trade war that is tearing the close partners apart.
This week, Europe will push ahead with its first countermaneuver — one of potentially several to come.
E.U. officials have spent the last several weeks refining a list of retaliatory tariffs that they plan to put into place on April 15. They are showing member states’ foreign and trade ministers their suggestions in Luxembourg on Monday, and a vote on the list is expected on Wednesday.
Those tariffs would come in response to steel and aluminum levies that Washington previously announced, and they are expected to be sweeping; the preliminary list covered everything from whiskey and motorcycles to boats and soybeans. But they would also be just the start, an opening bid in Europe’s response to Mr. Trump’s tariff rollout.
European officials are working on additional plans to respond to car tariffs that were announced in late March, and to the across-the-board tariffs of 20 percent that Mr. Trump announced last week.
E.U. leaders are hitting back in stages for two reasons. First, they needed time to digest the flurry of announcements that have come from the White House, hoping to design a response that would inflict maximum pain on the United States while minimizing the fallout for European consumers and companies.