EU Looks to Familiar Playbook to Hit Back at Trump Plan
The European Commission will review an approach that led then-President George W. Bush to remove tariffs in previous dispute
“It’s actually a stupid process that we must to do this, but we have to,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said Friday in response to Mr. Trump’s announcement. “We can also do stupid.”
.. The EU hopes to erode support for Mr. Trump’s policies by taking its fight to his allies’ constituencies. Roughly 95% of all bourbon comes from Kentucky, home of Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican. House Speaker Paul Ryan is a Republican from Wisconsin, home to Harley Davidson.
.. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on Sunday dismissed the EU’s tariff threat as a “rounding error.”
.. The EU lastly is readying a challenge, with other trading partners, in the World Trade Organization against Mr. Trump’s national-security justification for the tariffs, EU officials said.
“We think that these are safeguards in disguise to protect American industries,” the EU official said.
.. A similar playbook was successful in a fight with former President George W. Bush. In 2002 he imposed tariffs ranging from 8% to 30% on steel imports to protect against a surge of imports, mostly from China. That move was cast as an industry safeguard, not a national-security measure.
Brussels responded by publishing a list of U.S. goods to be slapped with duties totaling $2.2 billion. The list included orange juice from Florida, where Mr. Bush’s brother was governor.