BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - The European Union has warned that it is mulling imposing a 25 percent tax on Levi jeans and bourbon imported from the U.S. if President Donald Trump implements his decision to levy new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.
The items were on a draft list of US goods to be taxed, BBC quoted Cecilia Malmström, EU Commissioner for Trade, as saying Monday.
Trump announced Thursday the U.S. will impose new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.
He indicated that he plans to impose a 25 percent tariff on steel and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum.
The tariffs are likely to benefit U.S. steel and aluminum producers, but the European Union and China have warned of retaliation.
Trump shrugged off the concerns by saying that 'trade wars are good, and easy to win' when the United States is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with.
'We are looking at possibilities to retaliate, meaning we will also put taxes or tariffs on US imports to the European Union,' Malmström told the BBC.
The EU Trade chief reportedly said that if the US went ahead and applied taxes to European steel, the EU would take the issue to the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX