Meloni calls for US talks on eradicating tariffs
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. (Photo by JOHN THYS / AFP)
ROME, Italy – Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Thursday that Europe must hold “frank” talks with the United States on eliminating all tariffs and that reprisal may not be the best response to Washington’s move.
Meloni, one of many European leaders who criticized the market-shaking tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump, said: “We need to open a frank discussion on the substance with the Americans.”
The “objective”, she added in an interview with RAI 1 television, should be “removing tariffs, not multiplying them”.
READ: EU keeps door open to Trump tariff talks; but readies for fight
Italy’s far-right prime minister cancelled all her appointments on Thursday to concentrate on the crisis caused by the US tariffs, which imposed a 20-percent levy on imports coming from EU countries.
About 10 percent of Italy’s exports go to the United States.
Meloni has vowed to carry out a study on the impact on different industries and to hold a meeting of the different sectors next week.
“We clearly have a problem, but it is certainly not the catastrophe raised by some,” she said in separate comments.
Meloni said that European Union nations had to jointly consider their response.
“I am not convinced that the best answer is to answer customs tariffs with other tariffs,” she said.
Late Wednesday she called Trump’s move “wrong” and said Rome would do everything to seek a deal with Washington, warning that a trade war “would inevitably weaken the West in favour of other global actors”.
Industry Minister Adolfo Urso also called for calm.
“Responding to tariffs on goods with other tariffs on goods exacerbates the impact on the European economy,” he told the Senate.
Meloni and Urso said the EU had to revise its ambitious Green Deal climate plan setting the bloc on a path to become carbon-neutral by 2050 because of the damage to a car industry now hit by US tariffs of 25 percent.
Urso also called for a “Buy European” plan to incentivize investment in the bloc.
