“It is definitely worthwhile for Europe to wage this type of a war or respond to such challenges. We have to stick to the principled position of not harming us or our allies,” Grybauskaitė told journalists in Brussels.
In her words, the community should negotiate trade conditions with the US.
“They should first of all negotiate and explain that this will be damaging and harmful for the United States, recalling the recent experience 16 years ago. (…) I could briefly go back to 2002 when the (President George W.) Bush administration introduced these restrictions. Eighteen months later it realized that they cost too much and recalled them,” said the Lithuanian leader.
At the beginning of March, US President Donald Trump signed a plan of introducing a 25-percent customs tax on steel and a 10-percent customs tax on aluminum.
EC member Cecilia Malmstrom in charge of trade said on Thursday that Trump should soon announce that the projected imports customs fees should not apply to the community. Malmstrom spent the past few days in Washington D.C. to negotiate the reservation.