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Greer Says ‘Deal’s a Deal’ for EU on Capped U.S. Tariffs
Trump This Week Announced 10% Tariffs on 60 Countries
Key Takeaways:
- U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said June 4 the administration can impose new tariffs on 60 economies while honoring existing bilateral agreements with partners like the EU and Japan.
- The proposal follows a Section 301 investigation into forced labor practices and has raised concerns among trading partners, including the EU, despite prior tariff cap agreements.
- Officials said additional Section 301 probes, including one on industrial overcapacity, are weeks from completion as the U.S. weighs further trade actions and negotiations.
President Donald Trump’s trade chief signaled confidence the administration can roll out new tariffs without breaking terms of bilateral agreements, saying “a deal’s a deal” for economies like the European Union and Japan that negotiated caps on the U.S. levies collected on their shipments.
The White House late June 2 announced a proposal to hit 60 economies with import taxes of at least 10%, following a so-called Section 301 investigation into how trade partners handle goods allegedly produced by forced labor. That has caused uncertainty for some trading partners including the EU, which hammered out an agreement on tariffs almost a year ago in Turnberry, Scotland.
“We understand that a deal is a deal,” Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, told reporters June 4 at the OECD in Paris when asked about the EU agreement. “We want to make sure that we are able to resolve the trading practices that are identified as problematic in our investigations and we’re going to take into account the Turnberry deal, of course.”
He added, “we believe that there’s room to accommodate that deal within the context of what we’re doing, provided that the European Union delivers on the Turnberry deal.”
A separate, ongoing 301 probe into industrial overcapacity is “a matter of weeks” from completion, Greer said. “It’s on a little bit of a different time schedule” given its complexity, he said.
“With all the deals the president has struck over the past year, these are historic deals — our view is we want to stick to these deals,” he said. “We want to make sure that those countries, whether Japan or anyone else, we want to make sure that they are responding to the types of unfair practices that were identified.”
For nearly a century, the United States has prohibited the importation of goods made with forced labor. It is time for our trading partners to follow suit.
Today, Ambassador Greer determined that the acts, policies, and practices of 60 economies related to the failure to… pic.twitter.com/JWyRCDyXHL — United States Trade Representative (@USTradeRep) June 3, 2026
Greer said China received advanced notice on the forced-labor announcement and that consultations will continue.
“We’re being very responsible about the relationship,” Greer said of talks with Beijing, “We have to protect our economy, we have to have a certain level of tariffs — and our expectation is that as we go through these Section 301 investigations we’ll continue to have conversations with China to try to mitigate the challenges we identify at the same time having an appropriate tariff level as part of that mitigation.”
