THE European Union’s trade commissioner, Cecilia Malmstrom, said Tuesday she assumes the United States will not slap auto tariffs on the EU while the two sides are negotiating on trade, even as the Trump administration considers options to shield the U.S. auto industry from imports.

Malmstrom told an audience at the German Marshall Fund in Washington that any move by the United States to impose auto tariffs would not apply to the EU due to an agreement in July between President Donald Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

“We assume that if that [U.S. auto tariffs] were to happen, that would not be for the European Union,” she said.

Senior Trump administration officials Tuesday discussed the U.S. Commerce Department’s draft recommendations on its “Section 232” national security probe into the auto sector, which have been submitted to the White House and are being reviewed by various federal agencies.

Two administration officials said no decisions were made at the meeting Tuesday and no announcement is planned.

The advancement of U.S. Commerce Department’s auto report, which Trump has said could lead to tariffs on imported cars and parts of up to 25 percent, was seen as a way to ramp up pressure for better trade terms with the EU and Japan, one administration official said.

Malmstrom, who will meet with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer today to pursue more regulatory cooperation and discuss what future trade negotiations might cover, said she would be willing to include autos, but made clear that any U.S.-EU trade deal would be limited in scope, covering industrial goods. (SD-Agencies)