European Union officials are delaying their retaliation against President Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs — including 50 percent levies on American whiskey — until mid-April, aiming to refine the list of products that will be hit while also allowing more time to strike a deal with the United States.
The European Commission has decided that all of the countermeasures it announced earlier this month will take effect in mid-April, instead of starting to phase in on March 31, a spokesman, Olof Gill, said on Thursday.
“This provides additional time for discussions with the U.S. administration,” Mr. Gill said.
The E.U. was already consulting with its 27 member nations over the specific items that will be subjected to new tariffs, a 99-page list that covers everything from lingerie to soy products to machinery parts. In all, European officials have said they expect to put tariffs on up to 26 billion euros ($28 billion) worth of exports.
But Europe’s plan has met with a firm response from Washington, and European officials have been told that negotiations to avert tariffs will not begin in earnest until April, according to the bloc’s trade commissioner.
Mr. Trump has threatened to impose a crushing 200 percent tariff on European champagne, wine and other alcohol in response to Europe’s measures, and some European leaders from wine-producing nations have since criticized the planned E.U. response. Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister, has warned against a “vicious circle” of trade measures, and François Bayrou, the prime minister of France, has said Europe was at risk of “hitting the wrong targets.”
The goal in delaying the first wave of European countertariffs is to “strike the right balance of products, taking into account the interests of E.U. producers, exporters and consumers,” while also remaining open to a dialogue with the U.S., Mr. Gill said on Thursday.
Maros Sefcovic, the E.U.’s trade commissioner, said in a speech in Brussels on Thursday that Europeans believed the U.S. planned to impose additional tariffs on April 2, and that Trump administration officials did not want to negotiate until after those were announced.
“Only then may partners be able to engage on possible negotiations,” he said, adding that the E.U. would be flexible in trying to respond to the new measures.
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