MADRID (Reuters) -The European Union must remain united and avoid being naive in the face of threats by U.S. President Donald Trump to levy tariffs on its products, Spanish Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo said on Monday.
Trump on Saturday ordered sweeping tariffs on goods from Mexico, Canada and China – the United States’ three biggest trade partners – and also said tariffs with the European Union would “definitely happen”, without saying when.
EU leaders meeting at an informal summit in Brussels on Monday said Europe would be prepared to fight back if the U.S. imposes tariffs, but also called for reason and negotiation.
Earlier, Cuerpo told Spanish radio station RNE that the EU was open to trade and in favour of a globalised world market, but added that the bloc should make sure it was in a position to compete in equal conditions with rivals from other countries and protect its companies.
In separate comments on the sidelines of an event in Madrid, Industry and Trade Minister Jordi Hereu on Monday sounded a more conciliatory note, saying that Spain wanted an open global economy “in which all win, not only us”.
Spanish companies that would suffer most from tariffs are manufacturers such as car makers and producers of chemicals and consumer goods, Sabadell bank said in a note to investors, while oil producers could benefit from a stronger dollar.
Meat producers, another important exporting sector for Spain, were cautious about the prospects of U.S. tariffs on European goods, but see a wider trade war not without potential benefits after having lost ground in Asian markets, especially China, to U.S. and Brazilian competitors in the last few years.
“The imposition of U.S. tariffs could shuffle the board and favour the recovery of positions lost in recent years,” said Giuseppe Aloisio, director general of Spain’s meat industries association ANICE.
(Reporting by Inti Landauro and Corina Pons; Editing by Andrei Khalip and Gareth Jones)
