BRUSSELS, May 1 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement to increase tariffs on cars from the EU shows that the U.S. is an unreliable trading partner, EU parliament’s trade committee chair Bernd Lange said on Friday.
“This latest move demonstrates just how unreliable the U.S. side is,” Lange said. “This is no way to treat close partners. Now we can only respond with the utmost clarity and firmness, drawing on the strength of our position.”
Lange said that Trump’s behaviour is “unacceptable”. He said the EU was honouring a framework trade deal struck with the U.S. in Scotland last year which imposed a 15% import tariff on most EU goods, averting a bigger trade war.
He said the U.S. had repeatedly breached the agreement, “for example with over 400 products containing steel and aluminium, which are now subject to an average tariff of 26 percent”.
(Reporting by Jan Strupczewski, Writing by Charlotte Van Campenhout, editing by Ros Russell)
