29 January 2025, Commissioner Šefčovič outlined main priorities for the EU working with international partners on trade issues.
Focusing on EU-US trade relation, Commissioner stated that “in concrete terms there are several elements that a positive transatlantic trade cooperation could include:
- It should reflect overall openness from our side to agree on steps to increase bilateral EU-US trade and investment.
- One commercial area is, of course, LNG purchases, where there are opportunities to as we phase out Russian gas.
- We should also be ready to explore deeper EU-US cooperation on economic security – an area where both the EU and the US want to progress – including on how on to deal with joint challenges coming from China’s non-market policies and practices.“
Commissioner Šefčovič underlined the most relevant EU Executive Orders and memoranda that President Trump signed on Inauguration Day.
“First, President Trump signed a memorandum on an ‘America First Trade Policy’. In that memorandum he tasked his Administration to review individual trade policies and provide him with recommendations by 1 April, focusing specifically on unfair and unbalanced trade, China and economic security.
Second, President Trump signed an Executive order on the OECD Global Tax Deal.
So, we will continue to monitor developments and explore opportunities in areas of shared interests, while we continue our contingency planning for all scenarios.
Meanwhile, we will continue to pursue our trade policy goals around the world, notably by strengthening our trade ties with other countries. The deals struck with Mercosur and Mexico and the progress achieved with Malaysia are good examples of this.”
While talking about trade relations with China, it was stressed that China is the EU’s biggest and most challenging trading partner – “we need to rebalance this relationship around transparency, predictability, and reciprocity.”
For the full Commissioner’s speech please see here.