US president Donald Trump has described trade wars as “good” in the dispute over US plans to impose additional import duties on steel and aluminium.
The European Commission has said it will bring forward “WTO-compatible countermeasures against the US, which is imposing additional import duties of 25 per cent on steel and 10 per cent on aluminium.
President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker said: “We strongly regret this step, which appears to represent a blatant intervention to protect US domestic industry and not to be based on any national security justification. Protectionism cannot be the answer to our common problem in the steel sector.
“The commission will bring forward in the next few days a proposal for WTO-compatible countermeasures against the US to rebalance the situation.”
But in a tweet on Friday, Trump said: “When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win. Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don’t trade anymore-we win big. It’s easy!”
