The president of the Piraeus Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Vasilis Korkidis, commenting on the agreement reached assessed that although he characterises the deal as “the lesser of two evils” believes that is “commercially manageable” and stated:
«The announcement that the US and the European Union have reached an agreement on tariffs, following the general conclusion of the meeting between US President Donald Trump and the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, certainly brings relief to both sides of the Atlantic. In international trade, any agreement is always better than no agreement and the unilateral imposition of measures and countermeasures. The fact that it was agreed to impose a general tariff of 15% on all products, including cars, is an element that restores balance in US-European trade relations and seems to satisfy both parties. However, tariffs on steel, aluminum and aluminium remain at 50%, while it is not clear whether generic pharmaceuticals and semiconductors will eventually be subject to separate zero tariffs. The agreement also provides for “reciprocal benefits” since the EU “promised” that will buy US military equipment and energy worth a total of $750 billion, while at the same time making significant investments of $600 billion. The European side speaks of an almost “all-inclusive” trade agreement between the two major trading partners that brings stability. Regardless of the exceptions, it is significant that after months of negotiations the agreement was reached in less than a week before the August 1 deadline and the imposition of higher tariffs of 30% that would have had serious consequences. Nevertheless there are strong reactions by the state-members and specially from France and Hungary that the EU’s commitment is asymmetrical. The “bazoukas” of 93 billion euros for countermeasures disappeared while the EU trade surplus of 200 billion euros has been exchanged by 1,35 trillion “compensation”. Furthermore according to the economic analysts the 15% tariffs are expected to leave an impact of between 0,1-0,2% on the 17 trillion EU GDP. The big question is about the goods with “zero-zero” tariffs and what will happen with pharmaceuticals, generics and semiconductors, as well as with the agriculture-food products and the industrial products from steel, aluminium and copper. Finally we don’t forget the fact that the euro-dollar rate creates an additional cost of 13% on European exports to USA. We want to believe that the agreement to impose tariffs at 15% will be a “manageable situation” with the exceptions and we hope that it will not create significant losses in bilateral trade volume between the US and the EU. We certainly expect to read the final text of the agreement, the clarifications and exceptions from tariffs in order to approach closer the economic and trade impacts.»
