News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Tuesday, April 29, 2025
The EU obtained a one-month extension of a reprieve from planned US import tariffs on steel and aluminium. The duties were expected to kick in today. The deadline was set in late March as the US sought to negotiate new deals with its trading partners in return for a reprieve from …
There are only a few days to go before the EU learns whether it will manage to sidestep US duties on steel and aluminium. In March, the Trump administration granted the bloc and five countries temporary exemptions from tariffs adopted on national security grounds until 1 May, hoping to extract …
It’s time for the World Trade Organization to study the impact of state-owned banks giving low-cost loans to state-owned industries to boost demand during recessions, US-led group of five WTO members says.
The European Commission has released an 18-page document on the EU-Mexico free trade deal that was concluded over the weekend. Here are the distilled contents of the modernisation exercise, with yours truly’s knee-jerk reactions and annotations. Negotiators will work over the coming months on a final pact ready to …
The EU, the US and India came under fire today for measures to protect their steel and solar cell industries. But what’s more interesting is what wasn’t said during the meeting of the World Trade Organization’s Safeguards Committee. WTO members criticised the EU’s ‘safeguard’ investigation into steel as well …
The EU and Mexico have decided it’s time to declare the deal done. In a joint statement released on Saturday night, the EU’s trade and agriculture commissioners and Mexico’s economy minister said that “after several months of intense negotiations, this afternoon we reached an agreement in principle on trade …
It was another packed week in trade, with the trans-Atlantic relationship on top of everyone’s mind. We’ve covered some of it here, as well as developments in the run-up to the launch of EU-Australia and EU-New Zealand free trade talks. There’s been a lot of movement between the EU and …
The EU is struggling to find a consistent, coherent and efficient strategy approach to the US administration’s choking off of the World Trade Organization’s Appellate Body and to its unilateral tariffs on steel and aluminium. There is a lot of back-and-forth in the background – both in Brussels and …
The EU is engaged in a highly contortionist political exercise ahead of an expected final decision by the US administration on whether to make temporary exemptions on import duties on steel and aluminium permanent. Among the exertions is a notification to the WTO today.
This week, the the policy churn in Brussels will mainly be about what to do about Donald Trump’s trade policies. Some progress might be made when the EU and Mexico sit down for another negotiating round aimed at updating their trade deal, and European lawmakers in Strasbourg will vote on a …
