EU offered ‘zero-for-zero’ deal to US weeks before tariff announcement

Maros Šefčovič, the EU commissioner for trade, said the bloc is ‘not in the business of tit for tat, or penny for penny’. Photograph: Jean-Christophe Verhaegen/AFP/Getty Images

The EU has said it offered the US a “zero-for-zero” tariff deal on cars and industrial goods weeks before Donald Trump launched his trade war, but that it would “not wait endlessly” to defend itself.

Maros Šefčovič, the EU commissioner for trade, said he had proposed zero tariffs on cars and a range of industrial goods, such as pharmaceutical products, rubber and machinery, during his first meeting with the US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, on 19 February.