We see elements of de-escalation from the American side, says the EU presidency's deputy economics minister Michal Baranowski at Thursday's meeting between trade ministers in Brussels.
Negotiations are starting to take off, he adds.
The meeting comes after last weekend's tariff pause between China and the US and an American trade deal with the British last week – and reports of a negotiating invitation in the form of a letter from the Trump administration to the EU Commission.
"Small steps"
Small steps, says Benjamin Dousa about the agreements with China and the UK.
I stand firm that in the coming weeks, I don't think we (EU) will be going down for landing with the US, he adds after the ministerial meeting.
Some form of agreement will surely come with time, according to Dousa:
But we're getting no signals from the Commission that it would be imminent.
Dousa believes that the EU will be able to press President Donald Trump much harder than the British – with "both carrot and stick".
If that's what's waiting for Europe, the US can expect us to move forward with countermeasures. It's far from a free trade agreement. I'm not even sure I would call it a trade agreement at all, he says about the British deal.
"Both carrot and stick"
A list of the EU's possible countermeasures includes tariffs on US goods worth 95 billion euros. There are also certain EU restrictions on exports to the US of certain steel products and chemicals. This would be added to the tariffs on US goods worth 25 billion euros that the EU paused.
We will analyze it very carefully, to ensure Swedish jobs and the Swedish economy. Because we don't want to shoot ourselves in the foot now. We want to put pressure on the US, but we don't want this to harm Europe's and Sweden's competitiveness, says Dousa.
A decision on the countermeasures will likely be made in the beginning of June. He doesn't think there will be any problems getting a qualified majority behind this.
Except for Hungary, there is support for the Commission's line, says Dousa.
Another track is trade agreements that open up new markets for the EU. Dousa wants to, among other things, revive stalled negotiations on a free trade agreement with Australia. But he thinks it could be many more than that – a total of maybe six or seven already this year.
In the Trump administration's tariff shock against almost the entire world on April 2, 20 percent tariffs were introduced against the EU. A week later, Trump announced that they would be halved to 10 percent in 90 days to see if the EU and the US can make a deal on trade issues.
Besides these tariffs – which apply to all goods from the EU – Trump has also introduced tariffs on metals, cars, and car parts at 25 percent for the entire world, including EU countries like Sweden. There have also been threats of new US tariffs on, among other things, medicines, semiconductors, airplanes, and film.
The EU has, for over five weeks, tried to lure the US to the negotiating table with big deals, concessions, and rule changes to benefit American interests, as well as a new effort to jointly combat Chinese overproduction.
But despite three meetings between the EU's trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic and the US trade representative Jamieson Greer, nothing has happened. An EU diplomat says that it still seems to lack a mandate to negotiate with the EU from Donald Trump.
