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The EU is readying retaliatory tariffs worth €93bn against the US should President Donald Trump go ahead with his threat to impose levies on six member states plus the UK and Norway on February 1 as part of his efforts to acquire Greenland.
The list was drawn up last year but suspended until February 7 after the two sides signed a truce in their trade war. The tariffs would automatically apply from that date unless a majority of member states vote to delay them again.
Here is a guide to what is included.
What is covered?
Under a deal signed between Trump and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in Scotland last year, the EU accepted 15 per cent tariffs on most of its exports to the US and put on hold the implementation of its own retaliatory tariffs worth €93bn.
EU steel and aluminium exporters are still paying 50 per cent tariffs and the EU agreed to drop levies on industrial goods and some agricultural products.
But the suspended tariffs are back on the table after the president’s threats to impose punitive levies on the UK, France, Germany and other countries that sent troops as part of a planned military exercise in Greenland, a Danish territory. The European parliament has said it will not approve extending the tariff suspension until the matter is settled.
Aircraft manufacturer Boeing would be the biggest casualty of a new trade war. The EU package includes 25 per cent tariffs on American planes, and the US company accounted for the bulk of the €11bn of US aircraft imports in 2024.
Cars, bourbon and soyabeans are other big-ticket items on the retaliation list, which has not been published but seen by the FT.
The list also includes iconic US products such as Harley-Davidson motorcycles, Levi jeans and Lucky Strike cigarettes.
Machinery, medical devices, chemicals and plastics and electrical equipment will also be hit.
Why these products?
EU trade officials say the targets are chosen carefully. They must be products that can be replaced easily from elsewhere to avoid consumer anger.
Whisky drinkers can switch to Scotch or Irish brands, for example.
They also target particular US politicians and voters. House Speaker Mike Johnson and majority leader Steve Scalise both represent Louisiana, a soyabean-growing state.
“The basic criteria to draw up a retaliation list is to select products where the EU is not dependent on the US so as to minimise economic damage to the EU,” said Ignacio Garcia Bercero, a former senior EU trade official.
“A secondary criterion is to select products that can have an immediate political impact on the US. Since the €93bn list is very broad I think the main criteria would have been minimising negative impacts on the EU.”
The European Commission has to garner support from member states for adopting the tariffs, with some capitals having insisted on certain products being dropped for fear of retaliation against their own exports, such as spirits and wine. More than €20bn worth of products have already been eliminated from the initial retaliatory list.
Brussels also agreed export controls on aluminium scrap, which is imported by the US to melt as the basis for fresh metal.
What about the ‘trade bazooka’?
Adopted in 2023 but never used, the anti-coercion instrument (ACI) could restrict access for US Big Tech and other companies to the internal market and has been dubbed the bloc’s “trade bazooka”, viewed as the most powerful tool in the EU arsenal.
It could revoke intellectual property rights, put tariffs on Netflix or Hollywood films, stop US companies winning government procurement contracts and even close financial markets to US banks.
France is pushing for the ACI to be triggered, but other governments are wary as such measures could harm the EU economy and its consumers, and there are few alternatives to US venture capital funds or cloud-computing companies, for example.
It is also slow — the Commission must investigate alleged coercion, negotiate with the US and then get approval from a weighted majority of member states to agree to take measures, a process that takes at least several weeks.