Lower thirds:

00:02 Report by Christine Mhundwa
00:35 Jörg Kukies | German Finance Minister
00:54 Elon Musk | Trump Adviser and Tesla CEO
01:08 Christine Mhundwa | DW Brussels Correspondent
01:27 Julian Hinz | Kiel Institute
01:54 Donald Trump | US President

Every day 4.5 billion euros worth of goods and services 

cross the Atlantic between the European Union and the United States.

This bilateral trade is the largest in the world. 

The tariffs imposed by the Trump administration now make doing business in the US more costly for Europe

And Brussels is preparing to repond strongly.

But the preferred option in the EU is a negotiated solution with Washington.

Germany's Finance Minister even calling for removing ALL tariffs on ALL imports:

+++SOT Jörg Kukies, German Finance Minister+++
"The easiest way to assure balance and fairness is if everyone goes to zero and then we have free trade, and efficiency , economies of scale. The key is to send the signal that we are willing up to including reducing tariffs all the way to zero."

This would be welcomed by the world's richest man:

+++SOT Elon Musk, Tesla CEO+++
"At the end of the day I hope it is agreed that both Europe and the United States should move -  ideally in my view -  to a zero-tariff situation, effectively creating a free-trade zone"

+++PTC Christine Mhundwa, DW Correspondent+++
" Free trade between the EU and the US  remains the aspiration, and experts I've spoken to agree cancelling tariffs on the goods and services currently traded between the EU and the US would be good for both sides."

+++SOT Prof Julian Hinz, Trade Economist, Kiel Institute+++
"Dropping tariffs bilaterally between the US and the EU most definitely would be the best outcome. Having cheaper trade between those two economies would benefit both of them whereas the flip side, if we have tariffs, 20 percent on each side that increases costs for both sides. This is just an import tax tariffs are a tax, tariffs are an import tax and that can be lowered very quickly, very easily" 

On the day he announced the US' new measures, the US president suggested he could be open to 'zero tariffs':

+++SOT Donald Trump, US President, 02 April 2025+++
"To all of the foreign presidents, prime ministers, Kings, Queens, ambassadors, and everyone else who will soon be calling to ask for exemptions from these tariffs I say terminate your own tariffs, drop your barriers"

Conventional wisdom says there are no winners in a trade war.

It is understood in Europe that businesses and consumers on both side of the Atlantic stand to lose if Brussels retaliates in a way that raises the risk of a trade war of tit-for-tat tariffs. 

Calls for zero tariffs - a free trade zone between the EU and the US -  are growing louder from business,

but it will have to be the will of the politicians before it can become reality.

+++ENDS+++