The EU wants to make progress and engage with the U.S., Simon Harris said in a Bloomberg TV interview March 18. (Simon Wohlfahrt/Bloomberg News)
The European Union is ready to talk to U.S. President Donald Trump before making any more decisions on retaliatory tariffs, Ireland’s deputy prime minister said.
The EU wants to make progress and engage with the U.S., Simon Harris said in a Bloomberg TV interview March 18. “I think we should do that rather than having further announcements and then trying to respond.”
The comments illustrate just how difficult navigating the transatlantic trade war has become in Europe. After the U.S. administration threatened to slap a 200% tariff on alcoholic drinks from the EU last week, it remains unclear exactly how the bloc will respond further.
Trump promised only to revoke the threat if Brussels axes a proposed tax on American whiskey exports, which was itself a retaliatory response to U.S. steel tariffs.
“We are very willing to sit down with the United States and come up with an agreement,” he added. “At the moment, that’s not my sense of where the administration in the United States wants to go.”
In response to Trump’s metals tariffs, the EU is planning countermeasures with duties on as much as €26 billion ($28.3 billion) worth of American products, Bloomberg previously reported.
Ireland’s individual trade imbalance with the U.S. hasn’t escaped Trump’s orbit either. He told Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin at a St. Patrick’s Day meeting in the White House that while he “does not want to do anything to hurt Ireland,” the trade relationship must be based on “fairness.”
(Bloomberg Television via YouTube)
The small country is just behind Mexico and Vietnam and on par with Germany in terms of its trade surplus, Bloomberg Economics analysis shows. It is in part thanks to the number of pharmaceutical giants based there for tax reasons, including American multinationals Pfizer Inc. and Eli Lilly & Co.
Ireland recorded an overall surplus in goods trade of €12.2 billion ($13.3 billion) in January, driven by a rise in pharmaceutical exports, according to the statistics office on March 18. The country exported €72.6 billion worth of goods specifically to the U.S. last year, up 34% on 2023, amounting to a trade surplus in goods of €50.1 billion.
“The relationship between Ireland and the U.S. is long enduring, growing, mutually beneficial,” Harris said. “And Ireland, as members of the European Union wants to value free trade, wants to come up with a way forward.”
