On Monday in Luxembourg, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen formally put a “zero‑for‑zero” offer on the table. The EU would eliminate its tariffs on US cars and other industrial goods if Washington reciprocates by dropping its own levies to zero. The proposal comes just days after President Trump announced a 20 per cent tariff on virtually all remaining EU imports and a 25 per cent rate on steel, aluminium and autos, a move Brussels says threatens integrated supply chains on both sides of the Atlantic. However, US President Donald Trump has declined the offer and stood by his previous decision, stating to reporters at the White House, “The European Union has been very, very bad to us; they don’t take our cars, like Japan in that sense, they don’t take our agricultural product. They don’t take anything practically.”
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Rather than limit the pitch to vehicles alone, von der Leyen extended the scope to cover pharmaceuticals, machinery, rubber, semiconductors and more, essentially all industrial sectors. She stressed that the EU has offered similar automotive‑only deals in the past but received no adequate response and that this broader offer “remains on the table” as Brussels’ preferred route to defuse the dispute.
At the same meeting, EU trade ministers also agreed to launch retaliatory tariffs of 25 per cent on a curated list of US imports (initially capped below EUR 26 billion) should talks falter — underscoring that the EU is ready to defend its interests if negotiations stall.
President Trump, however, immediately rejected the zero‑for‑zero offer as insufficient to erase the imbalanced and unfair trade.
The transatlantic trade relationship is one of the most significant globally, with annual trade in goods and services exceeding EUR 1 trillion. However, the United States recorded a goods trade deficit of USD 235.6 billion with the EU in 2024, according to data from the US TraUS Representative’s office.
Among the total trade, over the period of 2018-2024, the United States exported a total of USD 2.05 billion worth of aluminium while importing USD 10.27 billion from the EU. This left the US with a cumulative trade deficit of USD 8.22 billion, meaning it brought in roughly five dollars of aluminium for every dollar it sent abroad.
In the same span, the European Union shipped out USD 2.80 billion in aluminium exports and took in USD 8.30 billion in imports. That resulted in a net deficit of USD 5.50 billion, with the EU importing about three times as much aluminium by value as it exported.
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