US President Donald Trump says the EU will get a letter outlining its tariff rate on Friday.
In an interview with US network NBC on Thursday the US president said members of the European Union and Canada would get letters notifying them of new tariff rates “today or tomorrow”.
“I’d like to do it today,” Mr Trump told NBC News’ Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker in a phone call, adding: “I’m talking European Union, which is, as you know, many countries, and Canada. We’ll be putting them out over the next couple of hours.”
It comes as European politicians and diplomats were on standby waiting for word of a breakthrough in the tariff negotiations, which one official said had entered the “final phase”.
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Negotiators from both sides have spent several intense weeks working on the broad strokes of an “agreement in principle”, that would stop Mr Trump following through on threats to double import duties he has charged on European goods sold to the US.
Officials in the European Commission, who have been leading the tariff negotiations, expect a deal will be signed within the coming days, if Mr Trump gives the go ahead.
Talks to agree a bare bones deal, known as an agreement in principle, were in “an intensive and final phase,” a Brussels-based diplomat briefed on the negotiations said.
“I think one of the difficulties [during] the negotiations has been that nobody knows what Trump wants. At the end of the day, he’s the one to approve of an agreement ... Much will depend on whether the deal is indeed on his desk and what he thinks of it,” the diplomat said.
“I don’t think that anyone should expect that a deal in principle would ensure that nothing new may come even in the short and medium term,” he said.
Shortly after speaking with NBC News, Trump announced that he would apply a 35 per cent tariff to Canadian imports starting next month, escalating a trade war that had recently shown signs of receding.
He said he plans to impose blanket tariffs of 15 per cent or 20 per cent on most trade partners, dismissing concerns that further tariffs could negatively affect the stock market or drive inflation.
“We’re just going to say all of the remaining countries are going to pay, whether it’s 20 per cent or 15 per cent. We’ll work that out now,” Mr Trump said. Blanket tariffs are currently set at 10 per cent.
“I think the tariffs have been very well-received. The stock market hit a new high today,” Mr Trump added.
