Maros Sefcovic urged the U.S. and EU to come together to address problems of overcapacity, while the Trump administration said the steel tariff hike to 50% from 25% was needed for national security reasons.

The European Union’s trade commissioner, Maros Sefcovic, underscored that progress has been made in tariff talks with the U.S., even as President Donald Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs have gone into effect.

After a meeting, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, Sefcovic told reporters at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) that the EU and the U.S. are headed in the “right direction” on the matter of trade and tariffs, according to a Bloomberg report.

However, he pointed out that steel tariffs are not conducive to maintaining the momentum. “Our goal is to maintain the momentum,” he said, adding that he expressed regret that the Trump administration has taken this decision.

He urged the U.S. and the EU to come together to address the problem of overcapacity, while the Trump administration stated that the steel tariff hike to 50% from 25% was necessary for national security reasons.

“I believe we can achieve a positive result. But we are also ready to defend our interests and do the utmost to rebalance our trade relationship,” he added.

The European Commission’s technical team will meet with its U.S. counterparts this week.

Earlier, an EC spokesperson stated that the bloc would prefer negotiations to lower tariffs and eliminate them wherever feasible.

Despite showing that it’s ready to negotiate, the EU is preparing its list of tariffs, which could be imposed on U.S. goods worth €95 billion (approximately $107.4 billion), covering a broad range of goods from industrial and agricultural products.

Amid these concerns, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), which tracks the S&P 500, was up 0.15% at the time of writing.

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