Has the EU ever used trade tariffs or countermeasures against the United States?
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Executive summary
Yes. The European Union has imposed tariffs and other countermeasures against the United States on multiple occasions, most visibly in 2018 in response to US steel and aluminium tariffs and again via WTO-authorized countermeasures in the long-running Boeing–Airbus subsidies dispute that led to EU duties on US goods in 2020 [1] [2].
1. 2018: Tit-for-tat after US steel and aluminium tariffs
When the United States announced 25% tariffs on steel and 10% on aluminium in March 2018, the EU moved quickly to challenge the measures at the WTO and to adopt retaliatory duties on a targeted list of US products — bourbon, motorcycles, orange juice and other items — amounting to roughly €2.8 billion, which came into force in June 2018 [3] [1] [4].
2. WTO-authorised countermeasures: the Boeing–Airbus saga
The EU has also used WTO-authorized countermeasures after long dispute-settlement litigation: following nearly 15 years of litigation, the WTO authorised EU measures in the parallel Boeing–Airbus cases, and the EU began imposing additional tariffs on roughly $4.0 billion of US imports in November 2020 as a lawful countermeasure against US subsidies for Boeing [2].
3. Why the EU chose tariffs: legal and political calculus
EU use of tariffs in these episodes combined legal avenues (WTO complaints and seeking authorisation to retaliate) with political targeting — selecting products with political resonance in the US to maximise leverage — a strategy documented in reporting on the 2018 response [1] [5]. Brussels has framed responses as “proportionate” and grounded in multilateral rules while at the same time using selective tariffs to raise political costs for US policymakers [5] [4].
4. Instruments, precedents and evolving toolkit
Beyond traditional retaliatory tariffs, the EU has developed broader trade defence and anti-coercion tools to deter unilateral measures, and officials have signalled readiness to use a combination of WTO litigation, targeted duties and domestic regulatory steps in future disputes [6] [7]. EU institutional pages and policy analyses note both the historical reliance on WTO remedies and the recent strengthening of EU instruments to respond to “economic coercion” [8] [6].
5. Limits, ambiguity and the politics of escalation
While these cases show the EU will and has used tariffs against the United States, the scale is bounded: the 2018 retaliatory list was calibrated to match the US measures and avoid a broader consumer shock, and WTO-authorised countermeasures followed protracted litigation rather than immediate reciprocal escalation [1] [2] [5]. Political negotiations — such as the 2018 Juncker–Trump statement to de‑escalate and later talks on tariffs and conformity assessment — also illustrate that tariffs have often been leverage to push for negotiation rather than an end-state [9].
6. Contemporary context and ongoing tensions
Recent reporting and analyses show the pattern persists: US tariff actions in later years revived threats of EU retaliation, prompted debate about new EU tools, and fed complex negotiations over broader trade frameworks between the two partners, with commentators warning of both economic costs and danger to the WTO-based order if unilateral tariffs proliferate [7] [10] [11].