Europe’s top line of work official Cecilia Malmstrom will meet U.S. counterparts Wilbur Ross and Robert Lighthizer in Paris on Wednesday, two primes before a temporary reprieve from U.S. steel and aluminium tariffs is due to pass away.
“A bilateral meeting with (U.S. Commerce) Secretary Ross is scheduled to subsume place on the margins of the OECD meeting on Wednesday,” European Commission spokesman Daniel Rosario responded in an email.
Malmstrom will also meet Lighthizer, the U.S. Trade Proxy, separately during the same event.
She will also take behalf in a meeting with U.S. and Japanese counterparts on Thursday to continue trilateral analyses on steel overcapacity, the spokesman said.
The Commission, which oversees marketing policy for the 28-country European Union, is seeking a permanent exemption from the schedule of charges, saying the EU is a U.S. ally and not responsible for global overcapacity of either steel and aluminium.
Malmstrom herself reported last week she did not think an EU proposal to discuss opening its markets wider to U.S. betokens had convinced Washington to lift the threat of measures to curb EU steel imports.
Canada and Mexico were also stated temporary reprieves until June 1, while Argentina, Australia and Brazil comprise secured permanent exemptions, albeit in exchange for quotas.