Europe

“There is a clear opportunity to build on recent agreements to further strengthen digital trade in the US-UK context.”

In a series of Generalized System of Preferences moves, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on Friday said it planned to suspend duty-free treatment for Thailand, restore some benefits for Ukraine and kick off reviews of South Africa and Azerbaijan.

“And it actually, in some ways, could be better for us and the UK in that then Europe would have to deal with the combination of U.S. and UK. So it’s not such a bed of roses for Europe to have a hard Brexit.” 

“I called for the opening of negotiations with the European Commission to find an agreement as soon as possible.”

The European Union’s trade chief said on Friday the bloc had “no alternative” but to respond in kind to tariffs stemming from a World Trade Organization dispute over aircraft subsidies the U.S. imposed this week, which have drawn a mixed response from U.S. business groups.

“The trade imbalance is so great that we can’t lose that because they do much more business than we do and that’s unfortunate.”

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on Wednesday proposed an outline of an international tax structure that would allow countries to tax companies that do not have a physical presence in those countries, a step toward an agreement that could supplant digital services taxes already in place or under consideration.

"The best thing we can do is to remain united and the worst thing we can do is to have fights and spats on issues that make absolutely no sense when we have to keep our eye on something bigger."

The United States will impose 10 percent tariffs on aircraft and 25 percent tariffs on agricultural and industrial goods from the European Union in retaliation for illegal subsidies EU member states provided to Airbus, according to senior administration officials.