European Commission cries foul over new tariff threat

The European Union's executive branch, the European Commission, has hit back at what it calls "unjustified" threats of yet more tariffs from the United States, just as it closes in on implementing the much-disputed trade agreement reached last summer between Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and US President Donald Trump.

On June 16, EU lawmakers are expected to vote on the deal, which critics say is unduly weighted toward the US and will impose a 15 percent levy on EU goods, while the EU removes tariffs on US products.

However, less than two weeks before the vote, the EU has been named as one of 60 economies, including the United Kingdom, China, India and Canada, which could face additional new tariffs of up to 12.5 percent, with Washington's justification being that the countries and trade blocs named have failed to curb trade in goods made with forced labor, which is harmful to US commercial interests.

Those facing an additional 10 percent tariff include Canada, Mexico, the EU, the UK and Pakistan. Other countries, including China, India, Japan and Australia, could face 12.5 percent.

'Unacceptable' action

"The failure of our most important trading partners to address the importation of goods made with forced labor is unacceptable," said US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. "This creates a dynamic where American workers are forced to compete globally on an unlevel playing field."

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning firmly rejected the remarks and said the threat was being used "as a pretext for political manipulation", while the EU said it already has some of the world's tightest restrictions around the trade of forced labor goods.

The US government's investigation, which led to the latest tariff threat, came about after February's US Supreme Court ruling that Trump had overstepped his authority as president by trying to use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose duties on many of the US' leading trading partners.

The European Parliament's chief negotiator on the implementation of the EU-US deal known as the Turnberry agreement, Bernd Lange, said the latest threat was clearly a response to this "defeat before the Supreme Court", which had left the White House "desperately" looking for a new justification "to sustain its tariff policy".

"Accusing the EU of not doing enough against forced labor is absurd," he continued. Lange chairs the European Parliament's trade committee, which on Tuesday voted to accept the Turnberry agreement.

He said that the latest threat was not unexpected, adding that "the impression is increasingly emerging that a tariff measure is sought first, and only then is a suitable legal justification found".

Commission Deputy Chief spokesman Olof Gill said the Commission "will carefully analyze the preliminary findings of the investigation" but that "the EU considers tariffs imposed on these grounds to be unjustified".