EU wants to boost G7 coordination to fend off Trump’s tariffs

EU trade chief Maroš Šefčovič said Monday the European Commission is seeking to formally engage G7 countries such as Canada and Japan to coordinate responses to U.S. President Donald Trump’s erratic tariffs.

Šefčovič, the EU’s lead negotiator with the United States, said that the EU had understood the two sides were nearing an agreement in principle, until Trump did a U-turn and threatened on Saturday to impose a 30 percent tariff on EU goods should the two sides fail to seal a deal by Aug. 1. Brussels already floated the G7 idea at an emergency meeting of EU ambassadors on Sunday, as reported in POLITICO’s Morning Trade newsletter.

Brussels is now trying to strike the right balance between keeping negotiating lines open and ensuring retaliation is still seen as a credible threat. This was on full display over the weekend, when the EU executive, which coordinates trade on behalf of the EU’s 27 member states, delayed the implementation of a first package of countermeasures, while inching forward on a second raft of retaliatory tariffs on around €72 billion of U.S. exports.