Peter Navarro, U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade and manufacturing adviser, said Thursday that Washington will not make tariff exemptions on steel and aluminum when asked whether the U.S. could exempt shipments of these metals from the European Union (EU) in the future.
“I can tell you that the experience of the first term with steel and aluminum tariffs is that every time we tried to give an exemption or exclusion to one of our allies, it was completely abused, and we learned that it was a slippery slope. So there will be no exemptions or exclusions for steel and aluminum tariffs,” Navarro told the media outside the White House.
On the occasion of today’s publication of new details on the trade agreement between Washington and Brussels concluded in July in Scotland, Navarro was asked specifically about steel and aluminum products from the EU, although his answer referred to any import of these metals, regardless of their origin.
After Donald Trump came to power in January, Washington has decided to tax all steel and aluminum at 50 % rates, although it has decided to cut tariffs on steel and aluminum from the United Kingdom by half.
During Trump’s first term (2017-2021) Washington taxed steel and aluminum with tariffs of 25% and 10%, although the EU and countries such as Argentina, Brazil, South Korea, Japan, Canada, Mexico or the UK achieved full or partial exemptions on their exports to the US.
Navarro, considered the architect of Donald Trump’s trade policy, was also asked today about the possibility of European wines and spirits, a product considered very important by the EU, receiving exemptions, but the advisor declined to comment.
Navarro considered that the framework published today marks the beginning of “a beautiful new spirit and environment of cooperation with Europe” and felt that, given the benefits to the U.S., no one, including the courts deliberating the legality of the U.S. government’s tariffs, should criticize Washington’s trade policy.
The advisor also took the opportunity to once again criticize India, whose exports to the US have been levied a “reciprocal” tariff of 25% and an additional 25% for its purchases of Russian crude oil.
Navarro stressed that India only started buying huge quantities of Russian oil after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine and that economically it has benefited enormously from these operations, obtaining cheap raw material to sell refined products to countries in Asia, Europe or Africa.
“They use the money they get from us when they sell us goods to buy Russian oil, which they then process in refineries, and they make a lot of money from that,” he argued.
“Then the Russians use the money obtained to build more weapons and kill Ukrainians, and then the U.S. taxpayers have to provide more military-type aid to the Ukrainians,” he added (With information from EFE).
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