Poland is among NATO members that proportionally spend the most on defence, Polish private broadcaster RMF FM said.
It cited Charles de Lusignan, communications manager at the Eurofer European steel association, as saying that Poland might be less affected by the new US tariffs than other European nations, such as Germany.
Poland exports only about 9,000 tonnes of steel to the United States annually, according to de Lusignan. Besides the country spends more than the required 2 percent of GDP on defence as part of NATO, “so it is possible that it will be spared,” de Lusignan told RMF’s Brussels correspondent, Katarzyna Szymańska-Borginon, according to a report on the broadcaster’s website.
On Thursday, US President Donald Trump announced the introduction of new 25-percent tariffs on steel and 10-percent tariffs on aluminium imports, while allowing America’s allies to seek exemptions.
According to The Financial Times, Trump’s move to impose punitive tariffs is meant to deliver on a campaign promise to protect the US steel industry.
According to the Reuters news agency, the White House has said that Trump "could offer temporary exemptions from import tariffs for steel and aluminium for Canada, Mexico and a clutch of other countries."
According to de Lusignan, the Americans will likely want to differentiate EU countries in terms of the new tariffs after some time, RMF FM reported.
For now, however, the criteria for assigning countries to different categories - those that are likely to be more affected by the duties and those that may be spared - have not yet been specified, RMF FM said.
It added that that such a division of EU member countries by the administration in Washington is unacceptable to the European Commission, the EU’s executive.
The broadcaster also cited Jyrki Katainen, a Finnish politician who is European Commission Vice-President for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness, as saying that trade is completely separate from NATO-related issues.
Katainen has rejected suggestions that tariffs should depend on the extent of a specific country's defence expenditure as part of NATO, according to RMF FM.
Katainen has also said that the EU would act jointly as one bloc in a dispute with Washington, RMF FM reported.
Reuters, meanwhile, has quoted Katainen as saying that the EU is hoping to be granted an exemption from US import tariffs and believes that an exemption for one member country would apply to the bloc as a whole.
“If they try to make an exemption for one of our member states, it means the EU as a whole,” Katainen said on Thursday, as quoted by Reuters.
This means that if Brussels introduces retaliatory measures against American goods, Poland will have to apply them, even if it is given lenient treatment by the US in terms of steel tariffs, RMF FM said.
(gs/pk)
Source: rmf24.pl, Reuters, The Financial Times