HELSINKI: European Commission VP Jyrki Katainen said that a proposal by US President Donald Trump to impose tariffs on steel and aluminium could start a trade war, according to website Politico.
Katainen, who is also a former Finnish prime minister, cautioned that Europe could wind up fighting a global trade war on two fronts, in Asia and the United States. Katainen offered the comments at a BusinessEurope lobby event in Brussels, Politico reported.
“I easily can see very unfortunate and worrisome developments ahead of us,” Katainen said.
Politico reports Katainen said that if Trump “is taking unilateral actions we have to respond, but it’s not only a problem between Europe and the United States. Because it has an impact [on] steel production, steel markets elsewhere, too.”
The chair of Finland’s Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee Matti Vanhanen call for stern action from the EU on the proposed US tariffs on steel and aluminium. Vanhanen took to micro-blogging site Twitter to declare that the planned tariffs could put an end to the current global economic upswing.
“The EU must primarily aim for rapid talks to push back against President Trump’s intention. But at the same time the union must be ready to respond in kind and unmistakably show that cherry-picking to protect one country’s output is not acceptable,” Vanhanen told the Finnish news agency STT.