EU pauses countermeasures for 90 days after Donald Trump's pause on tariffs

The European Union on Thursday said it is putting on hold the countermeasures against US President Donald Trump's sweeping tariff it announced on Wednesday, for 90 days.

The announcement was made by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, on Thursday. This comes after Trump halted the tariffs he imposed for a similar period.

"We took note of the announcement by President Trump. We want to give negotiations a chance. While finalising the adoption of the EU countermeasures that saw strong support from our member states, we will put them on hold for 90 days," von Der Leyen said in a statement on the social media platform X.

The EU had put tariffs on US goods worth €21 billion that are imported into the bloc, including soybeans from Louisiana, the home state of US House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson. It was in response to 25 percent tariffs on imports from Europe imposed by the Donald Trump administration last Wednesday.

A majority of the EU’s 27 member states on Wednesday voted in favor of the penalties, some of which would have started to take effect in mid-April.

Donald Trump pauses tariffs

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday abruptly backed down on his tariffs on most nations for 90 days, but raised his tax rate on Chinese imports to 125 percent.

In a post on Truth Social, his own social platform, Trump said he had “authorized a 90-day pause, and a substantially lowered reciprocal tariff during this period, of 10 percent, also effective immediately.”

Trump's treasury secretary Scott Bessent told reporters that the Republican was pausing his so-called ‘reciprocal’ tariffs on most of the country’s biggest trading partners, but maintaining his 10 percent tariff on nearly all global imports.

He said the pause would apply to 75 countries that had opened negotiations with the US, without elaborating which nations these were.