Ursula von der Leyen will visit U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington soon — but not before there’s a “concrete” trade package that can be negotiated between Europe and the United States, she said on Friday.
The European Commission president agreed with Trump when they met at the Vatican last month that she would soon visit him, though no date for the visit has been set.
Asked when she planned to go, von der Leyen told a news conference in Brussels: “I think I had a good conversation with Trump on the phone and at the funeral of the Pope. But for me, it’s important that if I go to the White House, I want to have a package we can discuss. So it has to be concrete, and I want to have a solution that we can both agree on that.”
The European Union and the United States remain at odds on trade, with Trump maintaining 10 percent tariffs on all imports from the trading bloc as well as 25 percent on cars and metals imports.
The EU paused its own targeted tariffs in bid to give space to negotiations during Trump’s 90-day pause. But Brussels raised the pressure further on Thursday by proposing potential tariffs on nearly €100 billion of imports, including big ticket items like airplanes.
Shortly after the EU unveiled its lengthy list of U.S. goods that could be hit by tariffs, Trump surprised European officials by heaping praise on von der Leyen, saying she was “so fantastic” and that he hoped the two would soon meet. That was a big departure from Trump’s previous stance of not engaging with EU officials (none were invited to his presidential inauguration) and saying that the bloc was set up to “screw” the United States.
In her first reaction to Trump’s praise, von der Leyen laughed for several seconds before saying: “I like compliments … In general.”
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