China this week criticized the Trump administration's decision to double tariffs on steel and aluminum, saying the tariffs will backfire on the U.S. and “seriously disrupt the stability of the global industrial chain and supply chain.”

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum promised unspecified retaliatory measures against the U.S. for doubling tariffs on steel and aluminum, unless a deal is struck between the two countries before next week.

Members of the EU Parliament's Committee on International Trade are in Washington this week to discuss political, trade and investment relations between the U.S. and the EU. The delegation, led by committee Chair Bernd Lange of Germany, will hold meetings May 27-29 with various U.S. agencies, lawmakers, business groups, trade union representatives, think tanks and academia. They will specifically talk about "how the tariffs imposed by the US administration are being applied, how business is adapting to the tariffs and how can EU-US trade tensions be eased moving forward," Parliament said.

The European Parliament on May 22 endorsed a European Commission proposal that it said would exempt 90% of EU importers from the bloc's upcoming carbon border tax (see 2502060060). The new rules would mostly exclude small and medium-sized companies that import "only small quantities" of goods covered by the carbon border adjustment mechanism -- less than 50 metric tons of those goods per year.

The head of the Africa Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said that Africans who are worried about the possible end of the African Growth and Opportunity Act should remember that it's not just their countries that are losing trade access.

Cecilia Malmstrom, a former top European Commission trade official, said the EU is "painfully aware that the transatlantic relationship as we used to know it has been severely damaged."

China this week said it’s temporarily reversing April announcements that added dozens of U.S. companies to the country’s unreliable entity list, which blocked those firms from participating in import and export activities in China, and its export control list, which blocked them from receiving certain dual-use items (see 2504090017 and 2504040024). Beijing will suspend those restrictions for 90 days from May 14, the Ministry of Commerce said, according to unofficial translations.

The EU is prepared to impose retaliatory tariffs on U.S. aircraft and bourbon to avoid "just being a market for U.S. products," an EU trade official said on May 15.

The U.K. should be wary of language in the recently announced trade framework with the U.S. (see 2505090006) that calls on Britain to comply with certain supply chain security requirements, which they said the U.S. could use to pressure the U.K. in its trading relationship with China, the U.K. Parliament heard from witnesses this week.

The Swiss president told reporters in Bern that her country would put together a letter of intent within two weeks, in the hopes of reaching an "agreement in principle" with the U.S., like the U.K. did (see 2505080033), and thereby avoid 31% reciprocal tariffs set to begin July 9.