The European Union spent last year drawing up secret plans for what the bloc would do if President Trump made good on his threats of imposing higher tariffs on European goods and services.
Now, as those threats go from hypothetical to potentially imminent, its plans are coming into broad focus.
Hit specific, politically sensitive sectors — like products made in Republican states — with targeted tariffs meant to inflict maximum pain. Don’t escalate into a tit-for-tat competition if it’s avoidable. Do move quickly and decisively, potentially using new tactics that could hit service providers like big Silicon Valley technology firms.
It’s a rough playbook — described broadly by three diplomats who requested anonymity because the plans were still being discussed — that Europe would prefer not to use. The first goal is to avoid a trade war by offering to negotiate and dangling carrots, including more European purchases of American gas, which Mr. Trump has been pushing for. E.U. officials have warned that a trade war between the bloc and the United States would be a self-defeating disaster that would cost both sides and benefit geopolitical rivals like China and Russia.
But Mr. Trump has kept the continent in his cross hairs, saying this week that the bloc would “definitely” face tariffs and “pretty soon.” If appeasement fails, Europe is broadcasting that it is ready to hit back.
“We are prepared,” Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said during a news conference this week in Brussels, when asked whether she was ready to fend off tariff increases from the new U.S. administration.
The commission, the bloc’s executive arm, has remained tight-lipped about what products it might hit with higher tariffs even when it meets with ambassadors and other diplomats from E.U. countries, said the three diplomats, who were briefed on the broad ideas developed by the so-called Trump task force. The bloc has 27 member countries, and plans that are shared too widely are likely to leak, eliminating their strategic advantage.
But several guiding principles are increasingly clear, said two of the diplomats, the result both of work by the commission’s task force and of experience gleaned from Mr. Trump’s first term. The diplomats requested anonymity to discuss politically sensitive matters.
The first idea is that tariffs would most likely be targeted, whether that means placed on certain industries or geography-tied products. In 2018, for instance, Europe reacted to steel and aluminum tariffs by hitting American whiskey with a large tariff, which hurt Kentucky’s bourbon industry and, thus, a constituency critical to Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican who was then the Senate majority leader.
A second idea is to stagger the response, kicking in or ratcheting up retaliation only if certain triggers are met or dates passed, two of the diplomats said. Moving deliberately provides more leverage, one diplomat said, and avoids an immediate and painful trade effect.
The third is that responses would not necessarily be tit-for-tat, according to all three diplomats. If Mr. Trump orders a 20 percent across-the-board tariff on Europe, that does not mean that Europe must respond with a 20 percent across-the-board tariff on the United States. The E.U. still wants to abide by global trade rules upheld by the World Trade Organization, which could suggest a more surgical approach.
One option on the table is the use of an “anti-coercion instrument,” a relatively new legal framework that would allow the bloc to rapidly target large American service providers — like big technology companies — with tariffs.
In force since 2023, the tool allows the E.U. to use “a wide range of possible countermeasures” like higher customs duties or import limits when another country harms European industry in an attempt to put pressure on the government and bring about political or policy change. The idea is to allow the bloc to respond to manipulative political pressure swiftly and sternly.
The Financial Times initially reported that the commission could use the tool to hit service providers, including large Silicon Valley technology companies, in response to American tariffs. Two of the diplomats confirmed that using the tool was being discussed, though far from a sure plan.
They said that moving forward with the tool might be too drastic of an option because Europe’s ultimate goal is not to inflame an all-out trade war.
For now, it is impossible for Europe to solidify a reaction plan. The simple reason: Nobody knows what Mr. Trump is going to do.
“They want to do a deal — I think they’re very uncertain still about what the true objectives are,” said Jörn Fleck, senior director with the Europe Center at the research group The Atlantic Council.
Also, E.U. leaders have at times struggled to get Washington on the phone. Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, has been invited to meet with foreign ministers but has not done so, though he has had a call with the bloc’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas. Ms. von der Leyen has not met with Mr. Trump since the inauguration in January.
Even though Mr. Trump has not said what tariffs on Europe would look like, he has repeatedly said he wants Europe to buy more American cars and farm products, in addition to gas.
That has left Europe offering incentives in an effort to fend off the trade war before it begins. Officials have been clear that they are willing — even poised — to buy more American fuel. Officials are already trying to find a way to diversity their energy sources as the continent weans itself off Russian gas.
“We still get a lot of LNG from Russia, and why not replace it by American LNG,” Ms. von der Leyen said in the days after Mr. Trump was elected, referring to liquefied natural gas.
European officials have also said they are likely to buy more American defense products as they ramp up bloc-wide military spending. Higher military expenditures are, in part, a response to Mr. Trump, who has insisted that European nations spend more on NATO.
And when it comes to Greenland — an autonomous territory of Denmark, an E.U. member, that Mr. Trump wants to annex for its strategic importance — Europeans have emphasized that they are open to investing more in the island.
“I totally agree with the Americans that the High North, that the Arctic region, is becoming more and more important when we’re talking about defense and security and deterrence,” Mette Frederiksen, the prime minister of Denmark, said in Brussels this week. “And it is possible to find a way to ensure stronger footprints in Greenland.”
Above all, European leaders have been trying to remind America of how important the relationship between the E.U. and the United States is, both economically and for global peace.
Not only is the E.U., when treated as a bloc, America’s most important trading partner. It is also a major importer of American services, and, as officials have repeatedly emphasized in recent days, European companies employ millions of Americans.
“A lot is at stake for both sides,” Ms. von der Leyen said this week.
But she added that “we will always protect our own interests — however and whenever that is needed.”
Ana Swanson contributed reporting.
