EU/TARIFFS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/WTO: “President Donald Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum from the European Union marks a new low in deteriorating trans-Atlantic relations and promises to complicate life for EU leaders grappling with growing problems inside the bloc. Coming just weeks after Mr. Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and a day short of a year after his exit from the Paris climate accord, it offers another sign that the U.S. administration has broken with decades of American policy by playing down European ties. The tariffs are particularly painful for European leaders because the U.S. and EU together built the World Trade Organization three decades ago to promote and regulate free trade and cooperated in the early 2000s on efforts to modernize it. Even while battling in the WTO, and from across the political spectrum on both sides of the Atlantic, the U.S. and EU had operated as peers on trade. Now the two camps could be headed for a trade war with unpredictable consequences, European officials warned. The EU said it could impose within coming weeks duties worth up to €2.8 billion ($3.3 billion) on U.S. exports to Europe. Mr. Trump has threatened to respond to EU retaliation.”
-Daniel Michaels, “Tariffs Highlight U.S. Tilt Away From European Allies,” The Wall Street Journal, May 31, 2018 10:36 am