The European Commission, the European Union’s (EU) executive arm that leads the bloc’s trade policy, said the deal between the US and China to lower tariffs was positive.
“We do welcome the fact that the US and China have announced that to some extent at least they will roll back the imposition of tariffs for 90 days,” a commission spokesman said on Monday.
Commission officials have privately been frustrated by the lack of progress to date, in their attempts to get US counterparts to enter into substantive negotiations to suspend tariffs imposed by Mr Trump on imports coming from the EU.
Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe said the EU will not “concede” that tariffs the US has hiked on global trade should become permanent.
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The commission was handling the tariff dispute in a “very appropriate and effective way,” the Fine Gael minister said. The aim remained landing on an “negotiated outcome,” he said.
“The European Union doesn’t concede for a moment that any of the tariffs that are there, are ones that should become permanent,” he said.
Mr Donohoe was speaking in Brussels in his role as president of the Eurogroup, where he was chairing a meeting of euro zone finance ministers on Monday.
