The European Commission has asked the large companies and European companies to detail their investment projects in the United States, according to two sources familiar with the issue, while the European Union is preparing for commercial negotiations with Washington after the threat of customs duties soft by Donald Trump.
The members of the Busineurope Business Association, an alliance of 42 companies in the region, received a questionnaire on Monday asking for information about the next US investments, with the instruction to respond as soon as possible, said one of the sources.
According to the second source, a similar note that requires details about the investment plans for the next five years has been sent to the round table of European manufacturers, composed of 59 members, with a note that emphasized that the request personally came from the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. Busineurope, the round table of European manufacturers and the European Commission did not respond to comments applications immediately.
Towards an exemption from customs tasks for European industrial products
The European Commission, which supervises the EU’s commercial policy, is redoubled an effort to conclude an agreement with the United States and avoid any increase in customs duties. After talking with Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday, the president of the United States, Donald Trump, returned to his threat of imposing customs duties of 50% in EU products next month, restoring the deadline of July 9 to allow conversations between the two parties to succeed in an agreement.
Donald Trump clearly indicated that one of the main objectives of his commercial policy was to reindustrialize the United States, to which the investments of European companies could contribute. The agreement between the two parties could be related to industrial products, exempt from customs tasks, which would allow the EU to buy more soybeans, weapons and natural gases (LNG) in the United States.
The EU diplomats said they had been informed that the two leaders had not spread to merits, but had agreed that contacts should multiply and that negotiations should accelerate. The European Commission of Commerce, Maros Sefcovic, spoke on Monday with Howard Lutnick and Jamieson Greer, respectively Secretary of State and American representative in Commerce, in exchanges that he described as good.
Source: BFM TV
