(Bloomberg) -- The European Union’s new leadership team has an old message for U.S. President Donald Trump on trade: cut out the unilateral and protectionist actions.
A week after the U.S. envoy to the EU called for a “reset” in transatlantic ties damaged by Trump’s multiple salvos against the World Trade Organization, European Commission President-elect Ursula von der Leyen vowed to defend the global open-market order underpinned by the WTO when she takes office in November.
“Europe’s place is at the heart of the rules-based multilateral system,” von der Leyen said in a mission letter Tuesday to Phil Hogan, whom she appointed as the EU’s next trade chief.
In an Irish radio interview on the same day, Hogan himself called Trump “reckless” and urged him to see the “error of his ways” in the U.S. trade war with China.
The comments highlight how the EU’s traditional inclination to accommodate its biggest trade partner on commercial questions has been replaced by a growing resolve to confront Washington over them since Trump took office in 2017 with an “America First” agenda.
During his presidency, Trump has outraged Europe by imposing tariffs on European steel and aluminum based on national-security grounds, threatened to do the same on EU automotive goods and brought the WTO’s much-prized arbitration system to the brink of paralysis.
The EU has hit U.S. products with duties as retaliation for the metal levies, vowed a similar reaction to any auto tariffs and come up with a makeshift system for settling disputes at the WTO.
While von der Leyen said in her letter to Hogan that he’ll need to work toward a “positive, balanced and mutually beneficial trading partnership with the United States,” she also highlighted the need for the EU to deepen commercial ties with China, Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
And, in a sign of the EU’s increased confidence when it comes to fashioning the global commercial order, von der Leyen said simply and bluntly: “The European Union is the world’s trading superpower.”