BERLIN: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Thursday urged the European Union to strike a “quick and simple” deal on tariffs with the United States, with just days to go before a negotiating deadline.
“It is better to achieve a quick and simple solution than a lengthy and complicated one that remains in the negotiation stage for months,“ Merz said in Berlin, at a time when EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic is in Washington seeking to seal an agreement.
Merz said a quick deal was needed “to remove the burden of tariffs on our businesses, which are far too high”.
He added that the current talks are “not about a minutely detailed trade deal” but “the quick resolution of a tariff dispute”.
A speedy agreement was needed, he said, “in particular for our country’s key industries: chemicals, pharmaceuticals, mechanical engineering, aluminium, steel, automobiles”.
The EU has until Wednesday next week to reach a deal or see swingeing US tariffs kick in on a majority of its goods.
If no agreement is reached, the United States has said it will impose an additional of 20 percent on the EU on top of a base rate of 10 percent.
If no agreement is reached, the default tariff on EU imports is expected to double to 20 percent or even higher -- Trump having at one point threatened 50 percent.
Last month Germany’s central bank warned that Europe’s biggest economy could face two more years of recession if the trade war with the US escalated. – AFP
