European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Thursday that Brussels is pushing hard to reach a trade agreement with Washington. "We are working nonstop to find an initial agreement with the United States to keep tariffs as low as possible and to provide the stability that businesses need," she said at the Italian-French Economic Forum.
She stressed that US-EU trade "accounts for 20% of all our exports" and is worth "roughly 3% of our GDP," supporting "millions of jobs on both sides of the Atlantic." "This is why our priority is to stabilize the situation with the United States," von der Leyen added, noting that tariffs are "attacks on industry" and "attacks on people."
Still, she acknowledged the limits of transatlantic relations: "We know the relationship with the United States may not return to what it once was." The EU, she said, is working to strengthen and diversify its global trade ties.
