After US President Donald Trump said he hoped to meet “fantastic” Ursula von der Leyen, the EU chief quipped on Friday: “I like compliments in general.”
“She’s so fantastic. I hope we’re gonna meet,” Trump told reporters as he unveiled a US-UK trade agreement on Thursday, his first deal with any country since he unleashed his global tariff blitz.
“The European Union’s big thing, they wanna make a deal very badly. Everybody wants to make a deal with the United States, so we’re doing that,” Trump added.
Asked about Trump’s comments, von der Leyen chuckled before getting down to business, emphasising the importance of a negotiated solution.
The European Commission president told reporters in Brussels she had “good conversations” with Trump on the phone and at the pope’s funeral last month.
“But for me, it’s important that if I go to the White House, I want to have a package we can discuss. So it has to be concrete, and I want to have a solution that we both can agree on. That is the work we’re doing right now,” she added.
Several countries have lined up to hold talks with Washington to avert the worst of Trump’s duties, which range from 10 percent to as high as 145 percent on China — Trump’s main target.
The US president announced a 20-percent tariff on most EU goods in April, along with higher duties on dozens of other nations, but has since frozen the measure until July.
But he maintained a “baseline” 10-percent tariff on imports from around the world, including the 27-nation EU.
Trump said the British deal would be the first of many, and that he hoped difficult talks with the EU — as well as China — could soon produce results too.
Britain had made a major push to avoid Trump’s tariffs, which the Republican insists are necessary to stop the United States from being “ripped off” by other countries.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer launched a charm offensive as early as February when he came to the White House armed with an invitation from King Charles III for a historic second state visit for Trump.
The reward came with the trade deal slashing export tariffs for British cars, which Britain said would fall from 27.5 percent to 10 percent.
By AFP
