WARSAW (Reuters) -The new U.S. tariffs on European products could cost Poland around 8 billion zlotys ($2.16 billion), according to preliminary estimates, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Tuesday.
“The losses will be significant on both sides of the Atlantic, but a tough trade agreement is better than a senseless tariff war between allies,” he wrote on social media platform X.
The U.S. struck a framework trade agreement with the European Union on Sunday, imposing a 15% import tariff on most EU goods – around half the threatened rate – and averting a bigger trade war between the two allies that account for almost a third of global trade.
Poland does not export many products directly to the United States, but expects to suffer knock-on effects as Polish companies are often subcontractors, and for instance, export car parts to Germany, which exports finished cars to the United States.
The new 15% baseline tariff on U.S. imports includes cars, a mainstay of central European exports. Although below a threatened 27.5%, it is a big increase on the 2.5% before U.S. President Donald Trump embarked on his global tariff announcements following his return to office in January.
Other countries in Central Europe also said the deal had eliminated uncertainty that has disrupted transatlantic trade, but said they expected a hit from the new tariffs.
The Czech finance ministry said on Tuesday U.S. tariffs will slow Czech economic growth by 0.2 percentage points for the remainder of the year and by 0.39 percentage points in 2026, citing preliminary estimates.
($1 = 3.6978 zlotys)
(Reporting by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk and Pawel Florkiewicz; editing by Barbara Lewis)
