European Union officials will vet and vote on a list of retaliatory tariffs this week, while contemplating what comes next.
President Trump’s announcement last week that he will impose a 20 percent tariff on goods coming from the European Union sent shock waves across the 27-nation bloc, the latest move in an unfolding trade war that is tearing the close partners apart.
This week, Europe will push ahead with its first countermaneuver — one of potentially several to come.
E.U. officials have spent the last several weeks refining a list of retaliatory tariffs that they plan to put into place on April 15.
Member states’ foreign and trade ministers were meeting to discuss U.S. and E.U. relationships in Luxembourg on Monday, with the list set to be circulated later in the day. A vote on the list is expected on Wednesday, E.U. officials said.
Those tariffs would come in response to steel and aluminum levies that Washington previously announced, and they are expected to be sweeping; the preliminary list covered everything from bourbon and motorcycles to boats and soybeans.
The edited version has dropped whiskey, one senior European official suggested on Monday, though a full set of items has not been published.