The ongoing transatlantic trade tensions between the EU and the U.S. continue to raise serious concerns for consumer and digital rights organisations. The U.S. administration is using the threat of tariffs to pressure the EU into weakening or delaying key laws that protect consumers, ensure fair digital markets, and support the green transition. The Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) strongly opposes the use of coercive trade tactics to undermine public interest regulations and calls for a renewed commitment to fair, transparent, and values-driven cooperation between the EU and the U.S.
Melanie Foley, U.S. co-chair of TACD trade committee – Global Trade Watch Deputy Director, Public Citizen
“The U.S administration needs to stop coercing the EU. Tariff negotiations should never be used as a weapon to dismantle hard-won consumer rights and protections.
“Congress must fulfill its constitutional mandate to oversee the trade talks. It should urge USTR to unlink tariff negotiations from the enforcement of domestic laws designed to protect people rights.”
Léa Auffret, EU co-chair of TACD trade committee – Head of International, BEUC – The European Consumer Organisation
“The U.S. administration will keep on threatening to impose tariffs on the EU whenever it feels like it. Enough is enough. Consumer groups on both sides of the Atlantic are united in calling on the EU to resist pressure to weaken its consumer, digital and environmental protections.
“Groups defending consumer and digital rights across the Atlantic stand together against the coercion by the U.S. administration. Laws designed to protect people’s right cannot be a bargaining chip in the EU-U.S. negotiation.”
Background
- TACD Statement, 3 April 2025, “TACD opposes the use of coercive tariffs by the U.S. to attack EU laws protecting people
- TACD Statement, 24 February 2025, “TACD opposes U.S. tariff pressure, calls for Transatlantic cooperation
- TACD’s Consumer Checklist for a new EU-U.S. Cooperation Agenda
Contact
secretariat [at] tacd.org