The president is responsible for commercial matters Donald Trump’s representatives of the administration, the Minister of Trade Howard Lutnick and trade negotiator Jamieson Greermet on Monday with the Vice President of the Commission responsible for technological sovereignty Henna Virkkunen and Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovicin.
The EU’s foreign ministers were also able to talk with Lutnick and Greer on Monday.
Many EU countries hope that the United States could lower its steel and aluminum tariffs. Instead, the United States has long hoped that the EU would moderate the digital rules regarding American techno giants.
US Commerce Minister Lutnick said directly at Monday’s press conference that if the EU finds a “balanced approach”, then the steel and aluminum issues will also be solved together.
Trade Commissioner Šefčovič emphasized in his speech that the EU Digital Markets Act does not discriminate against Americans.
However, the US trade negotiator Greer stated that the EU often sets the threshold values of the legislation so that in practice only US companies are covered by the regulation. He also described the implementation of the legislation as “quite aggressive at times” and considered the fines imposed by the EU to be large.
However, Greer said he was “very encouraged by the discussions” that took place on Monday.
“We know that these laws are important to the European Union, that they are trying to regulate in their own area.”
“We just want to make sure that we manage the situation for our companies that have global business models so that their global revenue is not affected,” Greer said.
Trade Commissioner Šefčovič was asked at the press conference after the foreign ministers’ meeting whether the EU now has to back down or change its digital legislation due to American demands.
Šefčovič did not answer the question directly, but only stated that Virkkunen and he did their best to explain to Americans how EU legislation works.
“We explained that it’s not discriminatory and it doesn’t target American companies, and I think we simply need to do more explaining in that regard,” the trade commissioner said.
Virkkunen commented on the meeting on Monday on social media. He said that he presented to the Americans, among other things, the EU’s simplification program, which also includes the Digital Omnibus package approved last week. In addition, he said that he reminded of the importance of the DSA (Digital Services Act) to protect European citizens and the importance of the DMA (Digital Markets Act) to ensure fair competition and innovation online.