BRUSSELS, March 8 (Reuters) - The European Union is hoping it will be granted an exemption from U.S. import tariffs andbelieves that an exemption for one EU country would apply to thebloc as a whole, European Commission Vice President JyrkiKatainen said on Thursday.
The White House has said that U.S. President Donald Trumpcould offer temporary exemptions from import tariffs for steeland aluminium for Canada, Mexico and a clutch of othercountries. are anxiously awaiting the final outcome.... One couldsay that it is good news, in a sense, in that there areopportunities to avoid damages," Katainen told a news conferencein Brussels.
Katainen said that he had read that the United States wasconsidering exemptions for NAFTA partners Canada and Mexico, butalso the United Kingdom.
"If they try to make an exemption for one of our memberstates, it means the EU as a whole," he said, adding that the EUwas still trying to convince the United States that tariffs werea bad idea.
"We don't need to go to the 1930s. It's enough to go to thebeginning of the 2000s when the U.S. authorities imposed steeltariffs for Europe. It meant in practice that in the U.S. theylost thousands and thousands of jobs," Katainen said.