Imports from EU countries to the US will face new tariffs of 20% starting on April 9. In Luxembourg, EU trade ministers are gathering to discuss the bloc's response and options to avoid an all-out trade war.
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00:00Every day four and a half billion euros worth of goods and services cross the Atlantic between the European Union and the United States.
00:07This bilateral trade is the largest in the world.
00:11The tariffs imposed by the Trump administration now make doing business in the U.S. more costly for Europe and
00:18Brussels is preparing to respond strongly.
00:22But the preferred option in the EU is a negotiated solution with Washington,
00:27Germany's finance minister even calling for removing all tariffs on all imports.
00:33The easiest way to assure balance and fairness is if everyone goes to zero and then we have free trade and efficiency economies of scale.
00:42The key is to send the signal that we are willing up to including reducing tariffs all the way to zero.
00:49This would be welcomed by the world's richest man.
00:52At the end of the day I hope it is agreed that both Europe and the United States should move ideally in my view to a zero tariff situation
01:02effectively creating a free trade zone.
01:04Free trade between the European Union and the United States remains an aspiration and experts I've spoken to here agree that
01:12cancelling the tariffs on the goods and services currently traded between the U.S. and the EU would be good for both sides.
01:20Dropping tariffs bilaterally between the U.S. and the EU most definitely would be the best outcome.
01:25Having cheaper trade between those two economies would would benefit both both of them.
01:32Whereas the flip side if we if we have tariffs 20 percent on each side that increase costs for both sides.
01:38Tariffs are a tax.
01:39Tariffs are an import tax and that can be lowered very quickly very easily.
01:44Liberation Day.
01:45On the day he announced the U.S.'s new measures Donald Trump suggested he could be open to zero tariffs to all of the foreign
01:53presidents prime ministers kings queens ambassadors and everyone else who will soon be calling to ask for exemptions from these
02:01tariffs. I say terminate your own tariffs drop your barriers.
02:07Conventional wisdom says there are no winners in a trade war.
02:11It is understood in Europe that businesses and consumers on both sides of the Atlantic stand to lose if Brussels retaliates in a way
02:20that raises the risk of a trade war of tit for tat tariffs.
02:25Calls for zero tariffs a free trade zone between the EU and the U.S. are growing louder from business.
02:32But it will have to be the will of the politicians before it can become reality.