BRUSSELS ―The United States has sent a letter to the European Commission in a first sign it is willing to engage in a negotiated deal with the bloc in their trade war, four EU diplomats told POLITICO.
The move, which happened this week, is the first positive concrete engagement from the Donald Trump administration since the two sides paused their wave of retaliatory tariffs. The letter is in reaction to a list of potential concessions the European Union has privately said it’s ready to offer, the diplomats said.
“The issue has been the lack of guidance from the U.S. side, which always demanded an offer from the EU side to negotiate,” one of the diplomats said.
The letter comes after the Commission last week dangled a list of potential concessions — including regulatory easing and joint efforts to curb Chinese overproduction.
Frustrated with the lack of engagement from the Trump administration, Brussels also put forward retaliatory tariffs on €95 billion worth of U.S. goods, and is now consulting on those with EU countries and businesses.
Trump imposed a 10 percent baseline tariff in early April, along with 25 percent levies on cars and metals.
If the two sides fail to reach a deal by early July, a higher tariff of 20 percent would kick in as Trump seeks to even out a transatlantic trade deficit, which he blames squarely on the EU.
The exchange finally puts serious negotiations in play on the €1.6 trillion transatlantic trade relationship after Trump struck an early deal last week with the United Kingdom and his top trade negotiator, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, agreed at the weekend to scale back triple-digit tariffs in talks with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng.
So far, EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič has failed to make headway in three rounds of face-to-face talks with the likes of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. That has sparked fears in Brussels that the bloc could end up at the back of the line to do a U.S. trade deal.
The Commission declined to comment.
This story has been updated.
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