The European Union wants to deepen trade agreements with India and other countries in the Asian-Pacific region as Bloc clips for US tariffs, said a top official.
“We have to investigate how far we can go to the Pacific area with other countries,” said the EU competition manager Teresa Ribera on Monday at Bloomberg TV. “For example, these discussions that went on with India are very important,” she said, referring to free trade talks with the South Asian nation, which is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
The EU is Preparation Bloomberg reported to reinforce the commitment to other countries that were made by the tariffs of US President Donald Trump after a number of new threats for the block and other US trade partners. Ribera spoke from Beijing, where she attended climatic talks with Chinese officials such as Vice Prime Minister Ding Xuexiang for two days.
Ribera meets when Trump increases the pressure on trading partners in the last few weeks of negotiations, before his so -called mutual tariffs. While she suggested that the EU would continue to negotiate, the block will work harder to sell its goods to other places when the tariffs become a reality.
“We have to continue to work on building up resistance and partnerships with the other partners, the other allies of the world who are also open and willing to apply the rule of law,” said Ribera, Executive Vice President of the European Commission. This will “ensure that peaceful and fair trade flows continue to take place”.
An EU China summit will follow next week when the EU and the Chinese leaders can enter into thorny topics that extend through trade and geopolitics. China was looking for closer relationships with the EU, but the block has concerns about Chinese industrial overcapacity, the lack of market access for EU companies and Beijing’s support for Moscow after its ingress in Ukraine.
Other EU complaints are fresh export controls from China on rare -end magnets that have hit the European industry. There was also hardly any progress in solving differences in the decision of the EU to collect customs duties for Chinese electric vehicles over claims that producers benefited from unfair subsidies.
“It shouldn’t be a bottleneck that kills the possibility of prosperity all over the world,” said Ribera in relation to China’s control over rare earth. “So this is another ball in which we still have to speak to discuss to avoid damage.”
In an interview, after talking about Bloomberg TV, Ribera said that it was “a little premature” to discuss a common communique or explanation with China about the climate cooperation, but emphasized a joint willingness between Brussels and Beijing, emphasized the discussions.
The EU hesitates to sign a joint statement on climate measures with China in a meeting in the middle of July, since the pace of emission reduction through the world’s leading environmental pollution reported last week. The newspaper quoted EUS climate shortcoming Wopke Hoekstra, who was quoted that China is not doing enough to commit to faster cuts.
