EU-U.S. relations – Business views on the way forward

Key messages

• For the European business community, the priority is to ensure that the transatlantic relationship thrives and fulfills its potential as driver for growth on both sides. It should also spur joint action to address policy challenges when possible and desirable.
• Decisions to impose additional tariffs on each other’s products will harm businesses and consumers on both sides of the Atlantic. The transatlantic economy is the largest and most important in the world and supports millions of jobs in both the EU and the U.S. Tariffs will increase costs, making trade and investment flows across the Atlantic more expensive and less attractive. They also hinder innovation, undermine efforts to secure supply chains, result in both short-term and long-term growth losses and create uncertainty in international markets.
• The priority should be to reduce the costs of doing business across the Atlantic. Instead of increasing duties, the EU and the U.S. should look at ways to eliminate tariffs and non-tariff barriers whenever possible. The EU and the U.S. should work to prevent new disputes from arising and always endeavour to avoid imposing tariffs on each other. Moreover, any ongoing disputes should be solved in a permanent way.
• BusinessEurope calls on the EU and the U.S. to establish a permanent platform for high-level dialogue. This should focus on finding durable solutions to disputes and irritants, strengthening cooperation on shared challenges, including non-market economy practices, and generating shared commercial benefits building a positive bilateral agenda.