China says it is raising its tariff on United States goods to 84 percent, up from 34 percent, from April 10 – while the European Commission has announced that EU states have voted to impose “trade countermeasures” in response to Washington’s tariffs.
The EU countries will start collecting the tariffs on April 15, it said in a statement. “They [EU tariffs] can be suspended at any time should US agree to a fair & balanced negotiated outcome,” Commission’s trade spokesperson Olof Gill said on X.
Tariffs of 25% were announced on a range of US products, including almonds, orange juice, poultry, soyabeans, steel and aluminium, tobacco and yachts – in retaliation against a similar rate of tariff imposed by Washington on imports of steel and aluminium from the EU bloc.
The list of products being levied was the subject of “intense lobbying by member states wary of US countermeasures hitting their industries,” EuroNews reported.
Hungary had made it clear that it was not voting in favour. France, Ireland and Italy secured the removal of Bourbon whiskey from the list of targeted products, after Trump threatened that its inclusion would trigger counter-imposition of a 200% tariff on European alcohol.
Meanwhile, US president Donald Trump has said that his administration will very shortly announce a “big tariff” on pharmaceutical imports – saying he believed it would bring companies “rushing back” to the United States.
The tariff on pharmaceutical companies would affect billions of euros of Irish exports as Ireland hosts operations for 9 of the world’s top 10 pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, AbbVie, Novartis, Johnson & Johnson, MSD, GSK, Bristol Myers Squibb, Astra Zeneca, and Sanofi.
Mr Trump said that once the tariffs are levied: “they’re going to come rushing back into our country, because we’re the big market,” he said. “The advantage we have over everybody is that we’re the big market.”