The Financial Times reported on the 24th that Bjorn Seibert, chief of staff of European Commission President von der Leyen, said that before the deadline of the EU-US trade negotiations on July 9, the EU needs to coordinate its position and be prepared to take more tariff countermeasures against the United States to form a "real threat" to the United States.

Seibert said that von der Leyen is ready to take escalating tariff countermeasures against the United States to strive for a better agreement. He hopes that EU member states will support the plan to impose a package of tariffs on US goods worth 95 billion euros, and said that the EU is also preparing measures for the service industry, including taxing US technology companies and restricting US companies from obtaining public procurement contracts.

Von der Leyen said recently that in the negotiations, if it involves the sovereign decision-making process of the EU and its member states, this is "untouchable" by the US.

German Chancellor Merz stressed that the German government will support tougher measures against the United States. He said that if no agreement is reached between Europe and the United States, Germany will take a variety of countermeasures to defend its own interests. If the current trade dispute escalates further, it will not be beneficial to either party.

At present, the United States imposes a 50% tariff on EU steel and aluminum products, a 25% tariff on the automotive sector, and a 10% base tariff on almost all other goods. US President Trump also threatened that if there is no breakthrough in the US-EU trade negotiations before July 9, he will impose a 50% tariff on EU goods.

In response, the EU has decided to impose tariffs of up to 50% on US imports totaling 21 billion euros. But in order to leave time for trade negotiations, this retaliatory measure was postponed to July 14.

EU negotiators admitted that they would not be able to get Trump to cancel his decision to impose a 10% base tariff on all EU exports. Their goal is to reduce the additional tariffs imposed by the United States on areas such as steel, aluminum and automobiles.

An EU spokesman also said that retaliatory measures against the US tariffs are under internal consultation. If the EU-US negotiations fail to achieve satisfactory results, the EU will reserve the possibility of using countermeasures.