BRUSSELS — It’s one thing to hit Harley-Davidson motorbikes and bourbon whiskey. It’s another to go after Silicon Valley or Wall Street.
The European Union is considering opening up a new battlefront as U.S. President Donald Trump prepares to impose so-called reciprocal tariffs on all of America’s trading partners Wednesday.
“Liberation Day,” as Trump has called it, would mark the biggest escalation in the trade war he first launched against Canada, Mexico and China. Universal tariffs soon followed on steel and aluminum, and then on cars — putting the onus on the European Commission, the EU’s executive, to defend the economic interests of the 27-nation bloc.
Brussels has so far played by the traditional trade war rulebook, matching Trump’s broader tariffs on the industrial metals with equivalent levies on iconic American brands like those Harleys. The tit-for-tat response is intended to match, or “mirror,” the United States’ moves — but not to escalate further.
